


Estwatch

by Caritas_Lavellan



Series: Earth Mind [6]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Established Solavellan Relationship, F/M, Fighting, Pirates, Romance, Solas Has a Plan, Sylvans, Unfortunately... so does everyone else
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-09 13:16:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 26,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12888681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caritas_Lavellan/pseuds/Caritas_Lavellan
Summary: The first step was a quiet landing, and securing a base of operations, in some hidden cove or valley. Gain that by the autumn, bring his army through the mirror with armaments and provisions. The Isle would quickly fall.Or so he’d said…It would help if they actually had a ship.





	1. Riding

**Author's Note:**

> Starts in Cloudreach 9:45 Dragon. See the [Earth Mind](http://archiveofourown.org/series/306273) series notes for further details of how this story fits in to the series.
> 
> And in case you’d wondered, Maryden really does speak in iambic pentameter.

The sun dropped lower in the skies behind them, illuminating the soft pinks and greens of Ferelden’s brief late spring with crimson gold. Mi’nan tossed his head as Virla pulled upon his reins, and slowed his canter to a trot. Somewhere high above flew Solas, a dark speck on a fierce grey griffon – ah, yes, there he was.

_Fen’Harel, my husband._

Married seven days – a seven days that somehow both the World and Fade had let them have, locked – for hours longer than she would have thought polite or permissible – in the Inquisitor’s tower room at Skyhold. A happy, profound companionship – reading, planning, sharing pasts – that blazed into intensity at nights.

She’d never known such happiness; and if she dared believe him, nor had he.

Their goal this year: to conquer Estwatch before the Qunari did. Timing and secrecy were of the essence, and not just because of the Qunari. If any Marcher states realised just where and how the Dread Wolf’s elven army planned to travel, they would petition the Divine to support one of their many historical and conflicting claims to own the Isle of Spirits, rather than let it fall to elves. Virla had enough experience of those kinds of political manoeuvres that she could entirely sympathise with Leliana’s wish to circumvent the whole.

The Divine’s outright support might only be gained if they prevailed just as Qunari ships – their huge and fearsome dreadnoughts – had been sighted off the Marches coast. Too early, and the elves would have no homeland, lost to politics and counter-claims. Too late, and… well, the island had been taken by Qunari forces once before, and the cities of the Waking Sea still bore the scars marked on them in the Steel Age.

As Solas was fond of saying, posturing was necessary. _Hence the griffon._

Virla thought of Estwatch as she rode. From all the maps and tomes she’d studied, and from Solas’ own ages-old recollections, the Isle was a large one, easily self-sufficient. It lay far out in the Amaranthine Ocean, a long ways east of the coastal Marches city of Hercinia, and a longer ways south of Llomerryn at the southern tip of Rivain. Its natural harbour had first been fortified by the Imperium seventeen hundred years ago. Most recently it was the home – if any place was home to pirates – to the Raiders of the Waking Sea, the Felicisima Armada.

The first step was a quiet landing, and securing a base of operations, in some hidden cove or valley. Gain that by the autumn, bring his army through the mirror with armaments and provisions. The Isle would quickly fall.

Or so he’d said… with that twist of his lips that she now knew was irony, a shrug to Fate. The ancient general could be confident in one thing only: nothing ever quite worked out the way that he had planned it.

“We’ll be out of this valley soon,” said Cullen, breaking into her reverie, spurring his great white mare to ride up behind them. He pointed to a bend ahead. “Can you ask Solas to confirm that we turn east here?”

Virla relayed the message into her sending crystal, feeling its faint pulse of magic against her skin as she waited for her bondmate’s response. It came as a curt affirmative, the words all but whipped away by the wind.

“Yes, he says,” she repeated. “Into the Brecilian Forest, to make camp in its outskirts.”

“How well do you know the Forest?” asked Lanaya politely of Cullen. The fair-haired Keeper of Clan Sulan rode Bua, Virla’s second-favourite mount from Skyhold. Bua was a temporary loan to help Lanaya get back to her clan.

“Not well at all,” admitted Cullen. He flushed slightly, looking away, then straightened on his mount, his hands fiddling nervously with the reins. “I grew up in Honnleath, west of Redcliffe. The coastal lands that Most Holy gave me for the Sanctuary are the closest I have ever lived to the Brecilian Forest… and I have been too preoccupied with settling matters there to explore my new surroundings.”

“You should take time to rest awhile, fair Ser,” called Maryden from up ahead, smiling over her shoulder.

“He is doing important work,” said Cole. He frowned at his girlfriend, as if puzzled that she could not understand. “The templars who sought sanctuary depend on him.”

“One must stay strong to be depended on,” explained the minstrel. “Inquisitor Lavellan knows that too.”

“Inquisitor Lavellan knows how hard I find it to stop working,” said Cullen, flashing a smile across at Virla.

The former Inquisitor returned the smile with a chuckle. “Indeed!”

They rode for a while in silence, as the mounts and wagon behind them adjusted to the smaller, rockier roads. Virla wanted to bring Lanaya into the conversation again. The Keeper was a quiet woman, of strong principles and good judgement. That the workaholic Commander was in love with her was plain to all of them except perhaps Lanaya herself, and Virla could not decide if it was kinder to encourage the relationship or not.

Indeed, if all of her and Solas’ plans fell right, and an elven realm created – first on Estwatch, then Seheron, and maybe – who knew? – eventually Par Vollen – the effect on Dalish culture would be seismic. Keepers, and city elders too, would be forced to choose between the distant dreams of a Dalish kingdom and the actual reality presented to them by their own god, Fen’Harel.

Mi’nan picked his way around a series of deep gouges in the earth, memory of rock wraiths or of darkspawn.

Virla held the bridle lightly, praying she could steer her course as easily. In that context, should Lanaya wish to be with Cullen, there would be a way for her to yield her clan into safe keeping and to choose her path. Solas might even permit the bonding, explain it as a way to secure more allies in a multiracial world, trusting to the proximity of elves among themselves to keep their race alive, as alienages and clans had done for centuries.

But even so, would a former Keeper ever permit herself a bonding with a human, however worthy?

The road widened out, leaving the Southron Hills behind them, and they were able to ride as a group again. “I am looking forward to seeing more of Brecilia as well,” she said, speaking clearly to bring them all in hearing. “I’ve only seen a small part of it – all within a day’s ride of Denerim. I heard the tales your clan told, Lanaya… and those of Clan Sabrae, and others. Yet Solas tells me the forest still hides many secrets.”

“The Divine found some of those,” said Lanaya, looking sombre, “when she journeyed with the Hero of Ferelden there, fourteen years ago, seeking Dalish allies in the Fifth Blight who would honour the treaties we had made with the order of Grey Wardens. And had they not come, our whole clan might have succumbed to the curse.”

“A curse? I do not think I know the tale,” said Maryden, her eyes alight with curiosity.

They were approaching the outskirts of the forest, and Virla’s heart leapt as she saw that Solas had brought Zephyr down to land. It felt an age since she had seen him, though it had only been hours. Since she could recite the Tale of Zathrian almost from memory, she spurred Mi’nan on ahead, away from the group, to meet him.

“She looks hungry,” said Virla, with a nervous laugh, keeping Mi’nan well away from the griffon’s knife-sharp claws. Her hart could defend himself – he’d gored a half-grown druffalo once – but she hardly wanted to have to separate him and Zephyr if they came to blows.

Solas nodded. His cheeks were red from the cold wind high above, despite the wolf-fur hat he wore, a gift from a tribe of Avvar loyal to the Inquisition. He reached into his saddlebags and pulled out a wrapped hunk of druffalo meat. Zephyr’s head whipped round, but she waited patiently until her elven rider held it out, then snapped it from his hand on his command. Mi’nan snorted in disgust, and bent his head to snag a mouthful of grass.

Virla stroked her mount’s warm neck. “How much longer today, do you think?”

She’d managed to say it neutrally, but when she looked up found a curious gleam in Solas’ eyes, a sharpening of his aura. Distraction replaced by a different _kind_ of distraction, as focused as he had seemed scattered moments previously. His intent look brought a pink to her cheeks entirely separate from the rosy sunset or the wind.

They’d only left Skyhold this morning, travelling half of Ferelden by a shortcut through the Crossroads, and she wondered if he was already thinking of the night to come. And just this morning…

 

_The waking world was calling to her, a sudden sharpening of senses as she fell from folds of Fade-spun fabric._

_Into the warm tangle of blankets and sheets, his scent and sweat marking the bed as theirs, not hers alone._

_She felt herself grow soft and drowsy, spread, the Veil a further blanket on her senses – a heavy, ancient weave that muffled possibility and will. Her husband’s will created it, sustained it… and for some sweet slow sensual seconds she remembered and imagined the sensation of it – of him – permeating every fibre of her being._

_Rolling over, bare and damp, her eyes still closed. Reaching, always reaching out, for him, her body ready for his touch, his consecration. Like lyrium made flesh, addictive in his warmth, his supple urgency…_

_And there he was… only a muffled elven **wilt thou?** before they rutted together once again, magic and tongue and penetration, her body a hymn of veilfire in his hands. _

_Secret chords she never knew existed._

_Terrifying depths of longing, hung naked over a shivering abyss, a rainbow bridge to happiness._

He cleared his throat, and she guessed that he was thinking just as she was. Hours of riding only exacerbated the physical need – the fresh air; the exercise; the endlessly dull unsatisfying friction of the saddle.

“There is a deserted ruin half-an-hour’s ride into the forest,” said Solas, with enviable blandness. “The clearing was just visible from the air. We could camp there.”

Virla gestured at Zephyr, who had finished the meat and was clawing at the ground. “Will she last that long?”

His lips twitched. “Anticipation is a large part of the pleasure, _vhenan._ ”

Any temptation she might have had to respond in kind, in droll flirtation, or with a more heated retort, was cut short as the others joined them. Lanaya broke off the tale of the werewolf curse long enough for Solas to describe where they were heading. As he led on, Zephyr bouncing through the darkening forest like a winged grey lion, Virla somehow found herself trotting at the back of the group, just in front of the soldiers who drove the wagon with supplies. The paths were too narrow for more than single file, and so she had to content herself with snatches of the conversation, and occasional glimpses of her husband’s elegant posture on the griffon’s back. As the light grew dimmer and the forest closed in, she found herself shivering slightly. The Veil was thin.

The ruin, when they found it, consisted of a single high stone wall, with pointed windows signifying an age that dated back to elven Halamshiral, the Kingdom of the Dales, if not as far back as the pre-Veil empire of Elvhenan. Looping Mi’nan’s bridle around a pillar, she eased herself off his back, leg muscles tightening in agony. Months of sedentary isolation, a month hiding as a dragon, two bridal weeks at Skyhold – she was out of practice riding.

 _Riding harts,_ _that is,_ she added silently, amused at her own innuendo, and tried to stagger less obviously towards the sacks and piles of fabric being unloaded from the wagon. Solas seemed to have disappeared.

“He’s gone to find a kill for Zephyr,” said Cole, appearing silently by her side with a folded tent roll.

“Ah, thank you, Cole,” said Virla. They worked together with the group, setting up the tents and benches and fire and wards with practised ease, so that by the time Solas returned with his ferocious – and beloved – griffon, a stew of rabbit and potatoes was already simmering nicely over the fire. Zephyr lay down to sleep, still absently licking the meat and blood from her lips, and Solas joined the circle in the space between Cole and Lanaya.

“What tales might this great Hall have seen, think you?” asked Maryden, strumming gentle fingers over her lute.

“Only the usual,” said Solas. “Murder, betrayal, intrigue, passion…”

Cullen shifted uneasily in his place on the bench. “Is that a guess, or do you actually know its history?”

“It has been some time since I stopped here, even in the Fade,” admitted Solas. “If, tonight, I explore it in the Fade, I may be able to relate a specific tale or two tomorrow. The spirits of the forest may remember.”

The evening was all but dark, and a breath of wind stirred deeper greyness from the trees. Virla wondered if they listened, and formed a question of her own. “Was this once part of the Forest of Arlathan?”

In the firelight, as Cole stirred the pot, the Commander’s brows pulled together, as if puzzled. “Isn’t that in the north, between Antiva and the Imperium?”

“The Forest of Arlathan used to cover most of Thedas,” explained Lanaya. Beside her, Solas nodded. “The Keepers talk of a time when all the land was forest, before the humans… I mean, before the Veil.”

“That is no mere fable,” said Solas. He sighed. “Indeed, I can remember such a time. Though in answer to your question, _vhenan,_ I believe Brecilia was always separate. Arlathan stretched through what is now Orlais as far as the Frostbacks, and some trees in the north of Ferelden may also claim inheritance, but not these ones.”

“So Arlathan was in Orlais, then?” asked Cullen, still frowning in concentration. “The elves’ lost city.”

“No,” said Solas gently. “The city was founded later. I was speaking of the forest. Much has been lost. Though it was not the humans who laid waste at first, but elves.”

Virla listened as the immortal, ageless elf that was her bondmate told of how successive generations bloomed. Burning, blasting, breaking, building… turning a world of living leaf and moss to silent stone and sand.

Slowly, she felt the atmosphere turn hostile. As he spoke, the trees began to bend towards them, inching their branches closer. Birds stopped singing, and the Veil felt… brittle, all of a sudden, like a twig about to snap.

“They’re listening,” she said, as Solas paused. “The trees.”

“The trees are angry,” said Cole. He shivered. “I don’t like it when they’re angry.”

Solas looked up and around. He swallowed, and made a sign of apology – a subtle gesture that Virla had only learned to notice this last year. “I share your anger,” he said to the trees in elven, and the strange pressure faded slightly.

Virla rubbed her left thumb against the blue light on her palm, in instinctive response to its sudden itching. _Calm,_ she thought. _Be calm._ “We should be careful not to offend the trees,” she explained to the group.

Lanaya nodded. “There are many sylvans here. Slow to wake, but they will be conscious of our presence.”

Cole began to ladle out the stew, and the conversation turned to neutral topics – or, if not neutral, such as the difficulties in weaning ex-Templars off their lyrium habit, or the politics of Denerim’s forthcoming royal marriage, at least less interesting to trees. Virla’s mind drifted, and when she’d finished her bowl of stew, excused herself on grounds of tiredness, and made her way to the tent reserved for her and Solas.

He followed her swiftly, and with a graceful wave of his hand, cast temporary silencing wards around the tent while she unrolled their bedrolls. Abruptly the sounds of the forest ceased, and Virla sat down to remove her boots. “It will be good to leave these behind,” she said, tugging hard at the heel of one. Her feet were hot and swollen, with a blister developing already. “Do you think we will need shoes on Estwatch?”

“Not in bed, certainly,” said Solas, kneeling at her feet to ease the other boot and both socks off. A quick wash of magic flowed across her heel and sole, and the pain disappeared. She breathed a sigh of relief, and he grinned, stroking his thumbs across the soft pads of her feet. “Is there anywhere else you need me to attend to?”

Virla feigned maidenly reluctance, an act she knew he adored. “The Dread Wolf would take me… in a forest?”

“In every glade of every forest, _vhenan_ ,” he said, his serious look only marginally exaggerated.

She laughed, impressed as ever with the subtlety of his acting. “Get a move on then, _‘ma Fen_ ,” she teased, as his hands roamed upwards, savouring each curve. “The trees might get jealous if the wards expire before you do.”

  



	2. Waking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who celebrate them, I hope you have a peaceful and joyful Christmas, and a great New Year. _Sulahn'nehn!_

Waking up here was different: a thinly-stuffed bedroll between her body and the grass; a morning chill unwarmed by Skyhold’s fires; the ever-present thinness of the Veil; and darkness where the light should be.

Virla rolled over, her eyes half-open, reaching for Solas’ warm body, secretly delighted to find him sleeping in the same relaxed position as he’d been all week. Just as in their majestic Kirkwall four-poster bed, his left hand rested, palm up, on his bedroll’s pillow, a cradle for his cheek. His chest rose and fell with shallow breaths, his skin familiarly pale and freckled. His other arm – likewise bare – lay over the bedroll’s surface, and curled around her as she snuggled in. She glanced up at his face and found him smiling, eyes still closed.

“Good morning, _vhenan,_ ” he murmured, his thumb running down her spine. “How did you sleep after I left?”

“Peacefully,” said Virla, resisting the urge to purr in response to his rhythmic strokes. “The spirit we met showed me more of the memories of the Alamarri lord whose family lived here in the Towers Age. And you?”

“The usual,” said Solas, frowning slightly. He shifted his arm from around her, casting another sphere of wards around the tent and silencing the dawn chorus of the forest. Yet he did not continue speaking, but simply tightened his arm around her, resuming the pressure of his fingers in tiny circles around her back.

 _The usual_ meant converting the souls of the dead to spirits in the Fade, setting them free from the Veil that held them for days or weeks or years or… “How long can a soul stay preserved within the Veil?” she asked.

Solas sighed, though not, she thought, at her. His fingers stilled. “A good question. Centuries, if the conditions allow. Far less, if they do not. And where the Veil itself is torn, the souls within are likely to be lost as well.”

His voice was laced with regret, and although he had promised to teach her, Virla decided to save her further questions for another time: _what conditions matter? How do you understand someone who died centuries ago?_

“Thank you,” she said instead, her voice a quiet exhalation against his chest.

“You are welcome,” he replied automatically. Yet the tension present in his aura dissipated, and she felt him slip from _thought_ to _sense_ , his hands reaching round to caress her unbound hair. She wriggled up, conscious of their lack of clothes inside their bedrolls, relic of last night, and gave her face for him to pull down onto his own.

As she dropped a soft kiss on his forehead, guided by his hands cupping her cheeks, her auburn hair cascaded around his hands and onto his shoulders, and his eyes blinked open. In the bright white sparkle of the silencing wards, twinkling against the dark tent cloth like a constellation of stars, she watched Fen’Harel twine a strand of her hair in his fingers, his expression pensive. _Sense_ returned to _thought_.

“What is it?” asked Virla, intrigued by his sudden intensity. When he didn’t answer, she persisted, aping a laugh in her voice: “Looking for white strands in the red?”

The wistfulness vanished, hidden behind a mask. He let the hair fall from his grasp. “No, _vhenan._ ”

It was frustrating when he closed her off like that, and doubly so given the history of their relationship. She allowed herself a sigh, making it deliberate so he knew she knew she might be being unreasonable.

He quirked an eyebrow in what she chose to read as apology. “I was not thinking of Mythal,” he said, as quietly as if there had been no wards of silence preventing the others in the camp from hearing.

The sudden chill in the air seemed real as well as metaphysical. Virla shivered, and reached for the tunic hastily discarded last night. “Nor was I. You thought… I sighed because I was jealous?”

Solas winced, and shook his head, but didn’t reply immediately. “ _Ir abelas,_ ” he began, and switched from Common into elven. “Old habits die hard. You will need to teach me that conversation need not be a game, where the object is to obtain as much information as possible while giving away as little as you dare.”

“Then say what you were thinking of… if you dare.” Virla tested the tunic, smoothing her hands over the thick green cotton. It was colder by far than her skin, so she would have to brace herself to put it on.

As if reading her mind, Solas drew a rune of warmth upon the wall of the tent. Despite – or perhaps, because of – the further, obvious distraction from the topic, Virla smiled. “You will need to teach me that technique as well,” she said, inspecting the rune. “I’ve never seen a fire rune on cloth that doesn’t simply burn the fabric.”

“You need to think about warmth, not flame,” he explained. “ _You_ should find it easier than most.”

He was flirting, in his own dry way, his eyes caressing her hair and neck – and pointedly not dipping to her naked breasts. “I wish you could have done this when we were in Emprise du Lion,” said Virla. “Or the Fallow Mire. That place lacked all warmth. Or… did you lack the power, then?”

“This requires finesse, not power. Naturally, I was trying to keep a low profile.”

Virla pulled the tunic over her head. “You were already the Fade expert. It would not have drawn any more attention. And we would have been warmer at nights. Cassandra would not let me use a fire rune in our tent.”

“Cassandra would have forced me to teach every mage within the Inquisition. She never yet saw me do useful magic but it was immediately shaped and honed into a weapon or an improvement for the sake of the troops.”

“That is an admirable trait,” said Virla, chiding him. She slid back down into her bedroll, lying down beside him. He nodded, the sardonic look fading into something… warmer. Fonder. “Why did you say I would find it easier?”

“Look at the colour and shape of the rune. Both ought to be familiar to you.”

She stared up at the rune, brushing her hair away from her face to see it better. “The shape is much like Solium.”

“You are correct. The colour… no, I will let you guess.”

Virla frowned. The rune gleamed orange-red, a shade lighter than a fire rune. And then it clicked. “My hair?”

“And now you understand me,” said Solas, a smile stretching his lips. “Not the fire itself, but warmed by fire. The sun’s reflected warmth, returning to the air at night, and rising from the earth. No cloth should fear that heat.”

“So which are you? The sun, or earth, or cloth?”

He chuckled, and the laughter in his eyes made her heart leap in response. “None of those right now. An elvhen man. And… even though its colour suits you, and complements your hair, I wish you had not donned the tunic.”

Virla pressed another kiss on his cheek, then whispered, as softly as she dared: “You still seek to distract me. You would not look so lost in thought at the thought of warming runes alone. Even in this cold, cold tent.”

“Naturally,” agreed Solas. He shuddered as she licked the lobe of his ear, then rolled them both over so he lay, bedroll and all, on top of her in hers. She gasped and giggled at the weight. “The real reason I looked as I did…”

“Go on,” she encouraged, as he paused, his skin bathed white and orange-red. “ _Dirth ma, ‘ma Fen._ ”

He put his mouth to her ear. “I _loved_ the last thing we did last night,” he confessed. “Before we fell asleep.”

She felt the blush rising to her chest and cheeks, and reached a hand out to her pack. “If you wish to practice that again, I ought to drink the tincture first.”

“Tincture… oh, yes. Your contraception.”

Solas helped her get the vial out and drink it, and made sure none of it remained to wet her lips before he kissed her long and hard. The back of her head was cradled by his hands from crushing the bedroll’s meagre pillow.

“Wilt thou?” he queried suddenly in elven as they stopped to breathe, that same familiar phrase.

She grinned. “You are a master of distraction. I don’t believe you’ve told me yet.”

“You… are denying your body the pleasure it craves unless I explain every thought that crosses my mind?”

“Not every thought. Just this one. If it is not a memory of Mythal, and certainly not because you yearn for warming runes, and not because I might let you repeat what we did last night… then why did you look wistful?”

He sighed, and stared over her forehead at the dark tent wall behind her head. “I was imagining a future. A little girl, with hair the colour of your own. My chin, perhaps. Your eyes. A daughter, if you must have it.”

Virla lay very still, her heart thumping painfully. “That is the truth, this time?”

“That is the truth.”

“But Solas…”

“No. There is no “but Solas” here. I cannot have you bearing child this season.”

His face was very sad, but she persisted. “Some season soon, then? My father the Keeper would love to have grandchildren. We could go some place where the Veil is thin enough to break…”

“ _Vhenan…_ ” His voice was a plea, and she stopped.

It was poor reward for telling this truth for him to be pestered by her. “Come here,” she said instead, and wrapped her arms around him. “It’s still dark. Let me thank you for truth in some way other than with words.”

“Words… are difficult,” he admitted, shifting down to lay his cheek on her chest. His breath was soft against her tunic. She could feel its warmth on her skin, seeping through the chilly cotton.

There would be time, she trusted, for him to tell her why the subject made him sad. They lay there for some minutes, silent in the ward-lit dark, Virla trying to be content to leave the next move up to him.

At last he spoke again, in a broken whisper. “I used to… bless each… newborn at the Temple. Dedicate them to Mythal. After I… left, I did not hold another in my arms until Taniel thrust Taralen at me last week.”

Virla tightened her arms around him. “That would be… what? Eight, nine thousand years?”

“Indeed. It is strange to imagine a future where I might have children. I made no binding vow, and yet I never thought the time would come when it would be anything other than an unconscionable risk. Immoral. Unwise.”

“If that is how you felt, then it is all the more to your credit that you resisted… you _do_ want children, yes?”

He nodded against her chest. “If they could coexist with duty…”

“Then why not let us shape a world where that is possible? If it provides the motivation, the purpose to keep going… is it wrong?”

“Actions are rarely simply right or wrong, _vhenan._ The first step, I suppose, would be to discover the extent to which our motives in having children would be pure, unbiased. Children take resources. They require care.”

“They could be a force for good in the world,” said Virla, smiling up at the ward.  

“That is one possibility, certainly,” said Solas. “You must also consider too that they might not be. Many a throne has fallen where the inheritor is weak. And… we are immortal. I did not lock the gods away to usurp the throne of Elvhenan, that mine own dynasty might inherit. I intended to scatter those powers, those freedoms.”

Virla’s smile grew. “We could teach them to be good at sharing,” she teased. “How many would you like?”

Fen’Harel hummed in thought. “Seventy-two?” he suggested, then as Virla gasped in shock, leant up so she could see the grin on his face. “It is an excellent number. We could pause for decades after each group of four, or six if you prefer. And the more of them there are, the less any individual is considered a target, or a threat.”

“I have no idea if you are being serious or not, _‘ma sa’lath,_ ” said Virla, her eyes wide.

He smirked. “Neither have I, for once. Let it be a warning to you for denying your body pleasure.”

Solas sat up straight, letting the bedroll fall to his waist and shimmying his legs out of it. Virla remembered the last thing they’d done last night, and shivered in remembered ecstasy. She swallowed. “ _Wilt thou?_ ”

“Always, _vhenan_ ,” he murmured, still smirking, collecting two red ribbons from a pouch at the side of his pack.

Virla moved as if to take off her tunic again, despite the persistent chill in the air, but a gesture from her bondmate stopped her. “I would rather you did not freeze,” he said, and watched as she wriggled out of her bedroll, rolled on to her front on top of its double layer, and bent her ankles up to her wrists for him to tie. Her tunic reached only to her waist, so they rested above her unclothed buttocks, the ribbon ends tickling her skin.

A pulse of force magic had her rising halfway up the tent, cocooned and stranded in mid-air. Fen’Harel knelt behind her and, letting his magic rock her gently, spread her knees and ran his thumb up over her dripping slit then down and round and round the sensitive mound at the tip of her _edhas_ , pressing as firmly as she could bear without screaming. Her knees clamped round his hips, and every few seconds the pressure against her aura added a new note to the harmony, swelling and brushing or compressing and feathering as he chose.

She was an instrument he played, dulcian to his breath, waiting for the moment when he would choose to join the music. Gasping and shivering – _ah, there!_ – she revelled in his touches, knowing he _needed_ this as surely as the world needed them both – a grounding in the physical reality he’d left behind for aeons in uthenera.

He was not a spirit – so close and yet so very far from that – and as the song of magic and sensation reached its peak, two bodies joined, one swift and strong and perfect thrust, and more to follow. Undulled by these last weeks, _that_ sensation felt so new, so full… her body and mind expanded, vibrating, floating, given flight, by him…

Thought failed her entirely, and she found herself giggling in irrepressible joy.

Then, with a sudden violence that shocked her, she saw a claw tear through the fabric of the tent.

A bloody, griffon’s claw. Inches from her face. The rent was several feet long, exposing… well, both sides. A heart-stopping draught of freezing air streamed through, laced with an unnatural edge of ice. _Oh, gods._

Corpses were out there, staggering and bludgeoning; a trio of arcane horrors; several demons. Their party was fighting – Cullen, Maryden, Lanaya, Cole, their soldiers and Mi’nan; and Zephyr bleeding from her side and jaw. She watched in horror as first Cole, and then Cullen, then Maryden and Lanaya, all caught sight of them.

And all in silence. Somehow, Solas’ muffling wards had held, and, forcing her head around and up, she saw his eyes were closed, his expression blissfully focused as he cried out and came inside her.

That explained why he hadn’t seen the claw or rent or felt the changes in her aura, she supposed.

“Solas!” she cried, belatedly. “Look!”

His eyes flew open, and she’d never seen him cast a shielding barrier or turn so red so quickly. A grey fog swam around them, obscuring their situation. She felt the ribbons ripped from her, and the magic tumble her rapidly to the ground. Somewhere nearby was a towel she could tie around her waist for a makeshift skirt.

Stepping out of the fog, towel tied, she saw that Solas had not stopped to make himself more decent – he’d clothed himself in the fog he’d created. And through the muffling wards, cacophony: a screaming griffon, gibbering corpses and shrieking demons; the slash of knives and whoosh of magic; and then…

A wave of power exploded over everything, and when she got to her feet again, the demons were as nothing.

Piles of ash, and bone, and glittering shards of magic.

Virla looked at Solas, then blinked as he Fade-stepped to kneel behind Zephyr, crooning and feeling her jaw with his hands, healing the cuts and soreness. Sweat dripped down his chest, his cheeks still pink… he looked as if he wished the ground would swallow him up whole the way he’d disintegrated the demons.

Her legs felt weak, but she had to walk across; apologise. “I’m sorry, Lanaya,” she said, somehow managing to meet her friend the Keeper’s eyes. “We had wards of silence on our tent; we’d no idea. Are you all ok?”

Cullen was still staring around the battlefield, as if unable to comprehend the strength and precision of the magic that had just been unleashed. Lanaya glanced at him, then back at Virla. “I… think so,” she said. “You?”

“I’ve had less exciting mornings,” said Virla. Warm seed was dripping down her leg. “Excuse me a moment?”

  



	3. Finding

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now that [Raindrops on window glass](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8605141) (the 21st century Earth AU) is finished, I'm returning to where I left off with canon - or in this case, post-canon - Solavellan. This story is plotted out, but I'll be writing it as I go, so expect a chapter approximately every week or two. Thanks for reading!

Solas had flown up on Zephyr as soon as they’d mended and packed their tent, his aura wrapped close and taut around him in the kind of angry silence that she felt was best left undisturbed. Left alone, Virla pushed her own embarrassment to the side and focused on ensuring that everyone got on their way as swiftly as was practicable.

It was a wise decision: the peace of the forest soon calmed her spirit; and her companions’ moods lightened as they travelled. Cullen took point with Lanaya beside him, followed by Cole and Maryden. The minstrel strummed on her lute as she rode, picking out the notes from the song of a nightingale they’d heard. Words drifted back – stories of Ferelden’s kings and Dalish lore, and the Deep Roads far beneath their feet. No-one spoke of demons.

Virla followed at the rear on Mi’nan, just behind the precious cargo on the heavy wagon driven by their soldiers. These two men had been hand-picked by Solas from his elves for this expedition, for reasons not yet shared. She knew their names – Theriel and Vel, one fair, one dark-skinned – but little more. Perhaps she could figure it out.

Then, as if the thought of Fen’Harel attracted his attention, the sending crystal chimed against her skin, the pattern of magic confirming it was his. She brought the pendant to her mouth. “What is it, _vhenan_?”

“The next halt for camp is five hours’ ride to the east.” His voice was clipped, torn away by the wind as usual, and she had to listen carefully to follow. “I will land and eat there, but you should break for luncheon now.”

His tone brooked no argument, so Virla acquiesced and let the pendant fall back silent. Better, she mused, to allow him further time alone for contemplation, rather than require him to dance attendance on their party. There had been little enough time for planning this trip, let alone for him to adapt to the changes.

Rather than dwell on that, she spurred Mi’nan forward to catch the others, called for a halt, and helped Theriel and Vel distribute the food. The Skyhold kitchens had given them several boxes of provisions, some even still containing leftovers from their wedding banquet: pies, preserved meats, pickled fish, dried fruits, and nuts.

The men seemed surprised she chose to sit with them and not with the humans or Lanaya, and Theriel put the thought into words, a puzzled look in his soft grey eyes. “Is there a problem, Your Worship?”

Virla shook her head, remembering Bull’s lessons about coaxing soldiers into talking. “No, not at all.” 

Vel chuckled, slapping a scarred hand on his thigh. “Seems like the demons this morning caught you and Lord Fen’Harel at a bad time, yeah? Bet he misses the castle.”

The man’s voice was deep, but pitched at a level that didn’t carry across to the others. Only Theriel looked shocked. Virla had dealt with Sera for years, so merely smiled. “Had you fought demons before, Vel?”

“A few as we marched from the Tirashan. Not pretty, are they?” He paused. “You know I’m from Tevinter?”

“I’d guessed as much from the accent. What brought you to the South?”

Vel’s brown eyes sparkled with a convert’s fervour. “Fen’Harel freed me, and my friend… and my old master’s other slaves. Six of us, we worked a farm north of Qarinus, on the Eyes of Nocen. Late last summer, one of Fen’Harel’s agents broke into the cellar where we were sleeping, woke us up. Our master had been summoned unexpectedly to Minrathous. He’d forgotten us. He would have left us locked in there! We would have starved.”

“How did the agent know you were in there?” asked Theriel, as Vel grimaced at the memory.

Vel shrugged, and played with one of his long dark braids. “I’ve no idea. He told us there was little chance we’d make it south without re-capture – we were too far from the border with Nevarra – and asked us what we thought about the Qun. We’d never heard of Fen’Harel then, and so we thought he was a Qunari agent, come there to convert us. He span us some Qunari propaganda – we’d fight Tevinter, no longer be slaves…”

Virla was listening as she ate, intrigued to hear this new perspective. “Were you convinced?”

“Some of them were, but myself and Ilmerius – we thought that it sounded too good to be true. So we followed the agent out, staying at the back, looking grateful. But soon as we could, we cut off from the group, making our way across the fields. Ten minutes later, as we hid in a clump of trees trying to plan, we were ambushed by _another_ agent of Fen’Harel – an elf again, but this time a mage. He froze us in ice where we sat, right up to our necks, and asked us why we’d left the group. Ilmerius was having second thoughts by now, but I told the mage straight to his face I’d preferred to take my chance of freedom than end up cannon fodder for the ox-men.”

“That was brave of you,” said Theriel.

Vel shrugged. “Not really. We knew something of the Qunari from my old master’s visitors. They had us carry benches out so they could sit and watch the dreadnoughts out at sea. Qunari _kill_ all mages that they capture. So this man was either nothing to do with them, or he was planning to sell us. In that case, we’d be no use dead.”

Virla shivered, remembering her own capture by Tevinter slavers. “So what happened next?”

“The man asked us more questions. I can’t remember them all. What we thought of the Chant of Light, of elven rights, what skills we had, what we’d be willing to sacrifice to make the world a better place. Probably didn’t take that long, but it was night, and we were freezing. I was terrified someone else would come and kill us all. The long and short of it was we passed the test, and travelled south with him towards Carastes, keeping a low profile. After a few nights of walking, as it was getting light, we scrambled into a valley sown with stripweed.”  

“Stripweed?” asked Theriel. His accent sounded familiar… Free Marches, maybe?

“Like grass, but stings if you touch it. They make tea from it in Tevinter,” explained Virla.

Vel looked briefly impressed. “Is that something you learned as Inquisitor, or have you been to Tevinter?”

“Both,” said Virla, smiling. “But that’s for another time. Was this where the closest eluvian was?”

“Yes,” said Vel. “The routes into the valley through the mountains were blocked by illusions, warded by magic, then guarded by more elves. They watched us as we passed. In the centre of the valley was a huge old temple, peaceful, with those horned horses you Dalish call halla grazing around it. It amazed me that there was a part of Tevinter hidden like this, a sanctuary where the magisters couldn’t find us. I wished that I could stay there.”

“What would you have done there?” asked Virla curiously. It sounded just like the place she’d been when chasing Solas, but cleaned up from the battles with the Qunari. If so, she was glad the halla had survived.

“Grown crops, if I’d had seeds.” Vel paused, his eyes narrowing. “What does Fen’Harel have in mind for us?”

It was an entirely reasonable question, but Virla thought it best to hedge at first. “What did he tell you?”

Vel had just taken his final mouthful of pie, so Theriel spoke. “That we’d be heading east on a critical mission. Not to speak of it. We helped him load the wagon. He said we should pack anything we had brought to Skyhold.”

“Which wasn’t much,” said Vel, frowning. “None of us came to Aratishan with more than what we could carry on our backs. Most of us had been slaves – we’d got our clothes, maybe a ring or talisman, no weapons.”

“We want to secure another place where you can be safe from pursuit, and can lead free lives,” said Virla. “That valley sounds beautiful, but it would be hard to defend from the Imperium for long given its position.”

Vel sighed. “I understand,” he said, getting to his feet. “Thank you for telling us more than Lord Fen’Harel did.”

“Were you a slave?” asked Virla of Theriel, once Vel was out of earshot and readying the mounts for the wagon.

He shook his head, spoke low. “No, Your Worship. I was recruited by your agent Jester in Wycome around the time the Inquisition forces came. I’d worked building ships. The Inquisition taught me to fight. When it was disbanded, I was let go. But I still wanted to serve Andraste. And when I found myself in Aratishan, I did again.”

“It’s a long way,” said Virla, thinking of her own journeys across the continent.

Theriel ran a hand through his fair hair, embarrassed. “I did most of the journey by ship, and not intentionally. My master got a commission which took us to Kirkwall, and then another that took us to Val Royeaux. Late one night I was walking alone in the docks when I was ambushed and kidnapped. Whoever it was knocked me out. I woke up hours later in a garden. Lord Fen’Harel himself interrogated me – quite politely, since he was Tranquil at the time – and decided to let me live freely as part of his forces. I don’t know why.”

“Perhaps he didn’t think it efficient to waste a useful resource,” said Virla, as they walked back to where Mi’nan had been grazing by a makeshift trough of water. “Few elves outside the Dalish are trained to fight.”

“The Sentinels taught us more,” said Theriel, looking away, then back at her: “What happened to them?”

Time for half-truths. “They fought on a different front from you. In time, you might encounter them again.”

Theriel seemed relieved, and Virla mounted Mi’nan, with much to ponder. A shipwright, and a farmer. Both tall and strong, for elves, and used to manual labour. Vel was handsome and charismatic; Theriel loyal and devout. She wondered whether all of Solas’ elves were as impressive, or whether he’d picked the best.

It was many long, hot hours before she had the chance to ask him in person – she’d kept their conversations over the sending crystal strictly to the directions needed for safe passage through the forest. At least the rock wraiths seemed to have had no impact here: Brecilia was as lush and green as Virla could have desired, with the sun’s warmth filtering through the foliage to the ferns and flowers and streams below the canopy.

That sunlight was fading by the time they eventually reached the clearing, following the old routes eastwards. She could have gone faster on Mi’nan, but they’d had to go at wagon pace. Riding in last, she looked around and found her bondmate watching out for her, his deep frown lightening slightly as he helped her dismount. She felt that familiar frisson of pleasure at the touch of his hands on her waist, the virile singing power of his aura.

“ _Ma serannas, vhenan,_ ” she said, reaching up to kiss him on the cheek. When he failed to smile, she squeezed the forearm she was holding, saying quietly: “You’re not still embarrassed about this morning, are you?”

The reminder caused him to wince, and reply too hastily. “What would be the point of that?”

Virla kept her face carefully blank, and began to lead Mi’nan over to where the other mounts were grazing.

“Our only mistake,” continued Solas, his long strides easily catching her up, “was not to have told the man on watch that we might be using a silencing ward. Now there is no need, _vhenan,_ since all of them will know.”

“So, if it is not that,” said Virla, after a pause to appreciate his use of _our_ and _we_ , “then what is the matter?”

He sighed. “Something I found nearby.”

Cole and Cullen were beginning to pitch the first unloaded tent nearby. Explaining to them that they would be back in a quarter of an hour, Solas led her to the bank of a nearby stream. There, with its throat neatly slit, lay an adult female halla. Its horns had been sheared off close to the base. Blood soaked into the grass below.

All her pleasure at the peaceful day subsided, to see such a beautiful animal slain and mutilated. She leaned over, careful to avoid touching it, or the patch of blood. “Poor creature,” she said, inspecting the wound.

“I believe it was killed today,” said Solas grimly, “and not by demons. That cut was made by a knife, not a claw.”

“I would not expect to find poachers this far into the forest,” said Virla. “There are no human settlements near.”

“And you would expect a poacher to skin it,” he agreed, adding thoughtfully: “I saw no sign of any other travellers from the air, although the canopy is dense and would most likely hide them. We are now within a day’s ride of Clan Sulan’s settlement. I presume this may be from their herd. In any case, we had better return.”

He linked her hand in hers, helping her to her feet, and walked with her back through the twilit forest. The mysterious sight had affected her mood as well as his, and Virla found she couldn’t stop thinking about it. After they had eaten and cleared away dinner, she turned to Solas, saying in a low voice: “We ought to show Lanaya.”

Clan Sulan’s Keeper was looking pretty in the light of the campfire, talking earnestly with Cole and Cullen about the different potions and tonics that could be made from herbs found easily within the Brecilian Forest. After observing them closely for a few moments, Solas nodded, his lips thinning. “It is her right to know.”

They left the others at camp, with clear instructions to set watch and be on guard, and walked through the moonlit forest to the stream. Keeper Lanaya was as shocked as Virla had been to hear of the murdered halla, to see the sacrilege. They knelt beside it, Solas balancing an orb of veilfire on his hand to illuminate the scene.

“Yes, I think this is one of ours,” said Lanaya. “How terrible. Elora would know for certain. Who did it?”

“We don’t know,” said Solas. “ _Ir abelas,_ Keeper. It is sad to see such a magnificent creature in this state.”

In the magical light, Virla noticed something strange: a small silvery stain that glittered near the wound. She pointed it out to her companions, as careful as before not to touch the halla’s corpse. “What’s that? Lyrium?”

“A strange kind of lyrium, to be invisible under sunlight,” said Solas, inspecting it closely, “but I think you are right. It may have been admixed with other substances. If I shift into wolf form it may have a scent I can track, but it will be easier if I lift the halla away from its blood. Have you any objection to my using magic, Keeper?”

Lanaya shook her head, still lost in thought. Solas used the veilfire as a focus to lift the stiff white body further along the bank of the stream, laying it gently down before he dimmed the orb. As Virla’s eyes adjusted to the dark, she felt the power pulse as he transformed. There he was: a large silver wolf with his muzzle close to the halla’s wound. Virla felt the Keeper’s unease intensify as he turned, his eyes aglow, and murmured reassurance.

Then, as they watched, the Dread Wolf began to lope off through the trees, presumably tracking a scent.

“We ought to follow him,” said Lanaya, assuming her authority as Keeper. “An owl form might be best.”

“I haven’t yet tried an owl,” admitted Virla, resolving to try it soon, “but you do that. I’ll follow as a raven.”

Ravens were smart, but her night vision was inferior to that of Lanaya’s tawny owl, so Virla found herself lagging behind, unable to fly too quickly for fear of smashing into a branch… or worse, a sylvan’s trunk. Soon, she couldn’t trace where Solas himself had gone, and was reliant on Lanaya’s increasingly distant hooting calls to know which way to fly. After a few minutes, she could no longer even hear the calls. Ought she to turn back?

Then, just as she was beginning to think she would never catch up, she felt a pulse in the Veil to the north. Following that faint sign, she came upon the opening to a cave, a rough narrow entrance in a sloping hillside. Inside, she could hear Lanaya’s voice: that pulse she’d felt could have been her shifting back to elven form.

“But why did you leave the camp, Idrilla?” asked Lanaya. She sounded puzzled, rather than angry.

Footsteps were emerging from the cave, and Virla decided not to interfere. She perched above the entrance, listening. A woman spoke, sulkily: “Elora said that one of the halla was missing. I was following its tracks.”

“Was anyone else with you?”

“At first, Marisyl and Ethorn, but they… um, well.” Idrilla stopped. “You know about them, don’t you.”

“Yes, _da’len_ ,” said Lanaya repressively. They were standing outside the cave now, two fair-haired women, similar in height. “I am far more concerned they let you wander the forest alone. You could have been killed by a bear!”

Idrilla hung her head, her cheeks flushing pink in the moonlight. “I _was_ attacked, Keeper. I know.”

Lanaya looked sharply at the younger woman. “You said the human did not hurt you.”

“Not in that way, _Mythal’enaste_ , but it was horrible! He grabbed me from behind… tried to kiss me… pressed himself against me… ugh, a _shem_ … put his hands up my skirt. I had to drop my new bow – the one that Master Varathorn had just finished! – and stab him in the leg with the arrow I’d just taken. Then I ran as fast as I could.”

“ _Ir abelas, da’len_ ,” said Lanaya, shaking her head. “That is truly terrible. Come, let me help you back to the people I am travelling with. It will be nearer than our camp. Can you remember anything else about this man?”

“I can’t… wait! He had a brown moustache, a fur jacket over metal mail. He said something about… Templars?”

Virla felt Lanaya’s anger flame fierce and cold as she ushered the hunter on. “Whoever it is, he will pay.”

 


	4. Returning

The raven in the shadows sat for a minute longer before she flew back towards the camp. It was easy to hear where Lanaya was leading Idrilla through the forest, and to stay back far enough that the women should not realise they were being followed. As they approached the camp, Virla circled round the outside of the clearing, back into the woods, and shifted, arriving on soft elven feet from another direction entirely. Regardless of whether she had done wrong in listening to their conversation, it could be worse now to reveal that she had heard it.

A dead halla, a Dalish elf assaulted… and unless he was shielding his aura for some reason, Solas was still gone.

Still adjusting from the transition back to her own form, Virla paused in the dark lee of a tent, taking stock. Cole, Maryden and Vel were nowhere to be seen: they would be asleep, like the horses and Zephyr. The fire’s ruddy glow had faded to mere embers, and Cullen was sitting on a log beside it, apparently lost in thought. Vel paced in a long slow circle around the camp’s perimeter, his eyes alert and watchful for any sign of movement in the forest.

Deducing that that Fen’Harel’s soldier-agent recruit would see the other women arriving before he came around to her, Virla waited, watching. Moonlight filtered through the trees, silver on black.

Sure enough, a half-minute later, Theriel put one hand on his sword-hilt, then forbore to draw it. He called out, loud enough for the Inquisition’s former Commander to hear: “Keeper Lanaya! Who’s that with you?”

Cullen woke from his daze, and stumbled to his feet. Virla followed quietly behind him, getting her first proper look at the newcomer. The hunter wore her long blonde hair in plaits around her head, slightly dishevelled. She was remarkably pretty: her large blue eyes peering out from behind a complex indigo vallaslin to Sylaise.

Lanaya was introducing her to Theriel. “This is my clanmate Idrilla Sulan, one of our hunters,” she was saying, a hand placed gently around Idrilla’s back and on her shoulder. “Idrilla, this is Theriel, a soldier in our party.”

“I thought we were still a day’s ride from your camp,” said Theriel, as Cullen and – a few steps behind him – Virla joined them. He sounded puzzled, and hadn’t removed his fingers from the grip of his sword.

“We are,” said Lanaya, then stopped, presumably – Virla guessed – because she was wondering how to explain Idrilla’s presence without forcing her to re-live her recent experiences in front of these strangers.

Cullen was oblivious to any nuance underlying her hesitation. “Lanaya… I mean, Keeper,” he said, belatedly trying to hide the warmth in his voice under studied formality, “we were beginning to be concerned for you.”

Idrilla was staring at him in horror. “You’re _human_ ,” she said, almost snarling the word in his face. She shook Lanaya’s arm from off her shoulders, and stepped back away from the group. Her eyes were full of fear and hate as she turned to admonish her Keeper. “I thought you were travelling with some of the People, not with shems!”

Virla judged it a good moment to step forward. “Some of us are of the People. I am Virlath, First of Clan Al’var. _Andaran atish’an_ , Idrilla. There is no need for you to fear this man. He served me faithfully for many years.”

The words snagged Idrilla’s attention briefly. “Served… you?”

“Virlath was the Inquisitor, _da’len_ ,” said Lanaya, her tone conveying more warning than reassurance. “Inquisitor Lavellan. Remember the Arlathvhen? She was travelling this way, and offered to accompany me home.”

The hunter crossed her arms. “I see.”

The frown on Theriel’s face deepened, and Virla was too slow to prevent him leaping to her defence. “The Inquisitor saved the world three times over – and the Commander with her! You owe them every respect.”

Idrilla’s eyes blazed, but before she could respond in hot denial, or Cullen make things worse, or anyone even _think_ of mentioning Fen’Harel, Virla intervened. “She owes me nothing, Theriel. What I did, I did for all of us.”

She held her hands palm up, and let them watch the blue light flaring from her new-made hand. That was a trick Madame de Fer had taught, as was the pause, the modest eyes cast down, the remembrance of the dead.

Nobody spoke, and Virla took a breath, daring to glance around the group. A fragile silence held. Idrilla was sullen; Lanaya coldly furious; Cullen hurt; and Theriel biting his tongue. She took another breath. “We can discuss these matters in the morning. Until then… Keeper Lanaya, shall we review the sleeping arrangements?”

Lanaya nodded. “Thank you, Virlath. And I imagine Idrilla might like something to eat.”

Idrilla looked as if she would rather stab herself with one of her own arrows than admit that she was ravenous, but some ten minutes later had been coaxed into a solitary position by the fire: wrapped in a blanket; drinking dandelion wine; and eating a cold meat pie. Having built up the fire for the hungry newcomer’s warmth, Cullen and Theriel retreated to the perimeter of the camp, watchful for signs of any other arrivals.

With Idrilla temporarily settled, the two Dalish mages seized the opportunity to talk privately in the remaining empty tent. Virla cast a silencing ward. “There’s something you’re not saying, Keeper,” she started, beginning to lay out the first of the three bedrolls they would need. “Why was Idrilla on her own, and so far from your camp?”

The Keeper sighed. “I apologise for Idrilla’s rude behaviour. You are correct that I would not have wished her hunting in the forest on her own. She has told me that she was looking for our missing halla, but got separated from the other hunters with her. Later, while she was tracking the halla, she was attacked by a man.”

“A man… a human man?” asked Virla, feigning ignorance.

“She believes so, yes,” said Lanaya, shaking her head. “Which may explain her outburst now.”

Virla stared at the bedroll as she smoothed it out. “Was she… hurt?”

“Only her pride,” said the Keeper. She brought her fingertips to her temples as if her head pained her, and sighed again. “She managed to escape.”

“Do we think her attacker might have been the one who murdered the halla?”

Lanaya picked up another bedroll, her fingers picking at the knot that held it tied. “I would imagine so. From what Idrilla says, the man was mad. He mentioned the Templars. And therefore, whether or not Idrilla wills it so, I would like to consult Ser Cullen. Not everyone manages to wean themselves off lyrium safely, and it may be that he will find that one of his ex-Templars has gone missing from his sanctuary.”

“It does seem a likely explanation,” said Virla, carefully, adding, in line with her own train of thought: “Did you see Solas? I lost you both.”

“I lost his trail as well,” said Lanaya. She winced. “A fine Keeper I am, to lose track of Fen’Harel.”

It was a joke born of suppressed anger, Virla surmised, at the events of the last two weeks as much as at Idrilla and her attacker. The actual presence of the Dread Wolf, Fen’Harel, was hard to get accustomed to.

“I’ll try the sending crystal,” said Virla, suiting the action to the words. The pendant shimmered in her hand.

“Hello,” came a soft voice. “Solas is not available at present. Please say your name. I will tell him you called.”

Virla rocked back on her heels, caught between fear and irritation. “Who are you? Why can’t Solas answer?”

“I am Serenity. Please say your name.”

Lanaya mouthed the word _spirit_ and Virla nodded. She put her lips to the crystal again. “You are a spirit?”

“Yes. Please say your name.”

She made a face at the crystal. “My name is Virlath Al’var Lavellan.”

“Thank you, Virlath Al’var Lavellan. I will tell him you called.”

The sending crystal fell silent and dull. “ _Fenedhis!_ ” swore Virla. 

“What happens if you try to call someone who has taken an animal’s form?” asked the Keeper.

Virla should have been asking herself that question. She frowned. “We ought to have tested that at Skyhold.”

“You had other demands on your time,” said Lanaya. She shifted restlessly. “I should check on Idrilla.”

The crystal in her hand pulsed suddenly, and Virlath brought it to her mouth. “Hello?”

It was Serenity, again. “Please say your name.”

Virla groaned. “We spoke a minute ago. I am Virlath Al’var Lavellan.”

“ _Ma serannas_ , Virlath Al’var Lavellan. I have a message for you from Solas.” Serenity paused, and then its voice took on the familiar cadences of the Dread Wolf. “I’m sorry, _vhenan_ , but if you called, I’m not available to speak right now. Serenity guards the parts of me that, when I’ve shifted form, pass through the Veil.”

“I understand,” said Virla. She shivered. The words reminded her of Cole, three years ago. “Is he ok?”

The spirit did not respond immediately, giving her time to regret the vagueness of her question. But then, as she was about to rephrase it, Serenity spoke, this time in its own natural voice: “The Wolf has caught her scent. _Vhenan_ should sleep at camp.”

“Whose scent?” asked Virla urgently. 

“I do not know,” said Serenity, then added, perfectly calmly: “He wishes to be undisturbed.”

“He may be gone a while,” concluded Virla, having thanked the spirit and slipped the pendant back inside her tunic. She looked around the tent. “I think it best if you and Idrilla sleep here, and that I join you.”

Relief sparked briefly in Lanaya’s aura, though she looked as tense as before. “You are willing to do that?”

“Each tent has only room for three. There are three humans, three elven men, three elven women. Idrilla will sleep better if she does not have to share with a human or a man. I’ll make sure that the guard warns Solas.”

Clan Sulan’s Keeper looked worried. “I would not like to offend Fen’Harel. You are so recently married.”

“He understands necessity.”

“I still find it hard to comprehend…”

Virla had no trouble completing the sentence. “That Fen’Harel is real? An elven man? Believe me, he…”

The Keeper stiffened and froze, and – too late – Virla remembered this morning, and a very naked elvhen Dread Wolf, cloaked in fog and annihilating demons. Leaving the bedroll unrolled, the older woman gave a slight, offended shake of her head, her eyes as cold as Virla had ever seen them. “I’ll tell Idrilla.”

“I’m not trying to be crude, Keeper!” cried Virla, as Lanaya pushed herself to her feet and walked out of the tent.

Fen’Harel’s new bride sat still for some moments, trying to calm herself. The Dalish politics of this were strange: so far beyond any semblance of normality that all they could hope for was to survive the storm.

There had been no reason, she told herself, to expect any kindness from the People. The web of faith woven by Hawen in spinning the Great Betrayer’s betrayal as one-sided (to continue the war against the Forgotten Ones alone, himself, in secret) would unravel as soon as it became quite clear that there were no Creators, still, to pray to. A bitter pill to swallow: this foul deceit far worse than mouthing  _Andraste loves you_.

Lanaya had been brave, and kind, to come to Skyhold. Braver still, to stay and recognise Hawen’s choice in admitting Fen’Harel – a choice she must have known would come to define her and her clan.

And Clan Sulan had endured too much as well. How old would Idrilla have been, when the werewolf curse afflicted Clan Sulan’s hunters and the Blight came to Ferelden? Ten, eleven perhaps – if she were the same age as Virla herself. And then the Breach, delaying the Arlathvhen – a Dalish Inquisitor saying (minus vallaslin) that she had met Mythal – and had rumours of the Dread Wolf’s plans spread as far as this, into Brecilia? 

Less talk, less talk; more listening. And: _whose scent?_

Virla finished laying out the bedrolls in the tent, and claimed the one nearest the tent door as her own, laying her pack at its head and taking out from it her current book: _The Ancient North,_ by Sister Petrine. Remembering her conversation with Vel at lunch, she flicked through the pages, pausing at the page marked _Magisterium._ Perhaps by trying to understand the government of Tevinter she would better equip herself to help Solas manage all the freed slaves he’d assembled.

He had been careful, though – the majority of those he’d chosen to recruit were those whose ex-owners were least likely to chase after them. Imprisoned, or recently deceased, or made Tranquil by order of the magisterium…

Of course, it wasn’t the first time he had planned a slave rebellion. Thankfully few in Tevinter would be in a position to know that piece of history; or, knowing it, to plan pre-emptive war against the South. This feint to the east, to Estwatch, was a first step: hold your ground! And maybe – just perhaps – there would be no war.

The Herald of Andraste placed the book back on the bedroll with a sigh. Tevinter was a distraction. She ought to focus on the task in hand. _Idrilla._

A simple gesture dismissed the silencing ward, and brought back the familiar night-sounds of the forest. Virla took another steadying breath, and went to brief the men about their plan. 

**** 

Virla had lain down, Petrine abandoned, watching the others sink into sleep. Idrilla was further: curled at the far end, silent face hidden, stiff-backed and tense. Virla had wondered, watching Lanaya — why’d she not bonded, up to this time? Blonde hair unbraided, rosy complexion, peaceful in temper, was she just happy, with being chaste? 

As she walked the forest of her dreams, the Dalish First of Clan Al’var thought of how Keeper Lanaya Sulan might perceive the world. By all accounts she’d few problems within her clan, and good, if distant, relations with Queen Anora and the Fereldan court. Perhaps she feared a man would try to take her power away from her, or interfere with how she chose to manage all her disparate threads? In that, the Queen might sympathise.

She’d thought to find Serenity, and thereby maybe Solas, but the Fade was pulling her in another direction entirely. Allowing it to have its way, Virla took a path to the outskirts of the forest — and found a merchants’ covered wagon, standing by the side of the road. Muffled voices inside it... _whose dream is this?_

As soon as she tweaked the curtain aside, it all became too clear. Lanaya there, a woman in the clothing of a frightened girl. A demon as a human man, his arms around her, pawing at her light blue skirt.

Lanaya’s eyes went wide. “ _Mamae!_ Save me!” she shrieked, before the man clamped a rough shem hand across her mouth.

The Inquisitor shook her head and focused. “How old are you, Lanaya?” she chided. 

The Keeper’s eyes went wider still, then narrowed, cold with anger, and Virla saw the man reform: a terror demon. Lanaya tangled its feet in roots while Virla slashed it with her spirit sword. Soon it was all but dead. 

Virla waited for the killing blow. It came: Lanaya fell to her knees. “Great Protector Mythal, Mother of all, forgive me,” she wept. “I thought you were my mother.”

 


	5. Cleaving

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that it has been a while - a combination of technological issues and general busy-ness. I will try to keep updating this when I can!

Virla swayed down the rotunda steps, knowing she must maintain the glamour of Mythal until Lanaya could no longer see her. Halfway down, she paused, and took a deep slow breath, trying to quell the inevitable feeling of discomfort, of lying by omission. This was the truth – or a truth – in the Fade, and she would learn to live by it.

The Creator goddess outfit was as comfortable as she could make it, from the complex half-braid that looped above a cascade of auburn ringlets, to the soft leather boots with silver trappings. Sleeveless robes of cerulean silk shimmered as blue as the Amaranthine Ocean. That silk was layered over a crisp white tunic and gathered at her waist with a thin leather belt. The whole was based on one of Solas’ sketches, a design now seven aeons out of fashion – yet as easy to wear as anything the Inquisitor could have chosen from her Skyhold wardrobe.

And in this guise she’d led the Keeper into this reflection of the library at Skyhold. She’d shown her a warm soft chair and books to read beside it – somewhere that she could be safe while sleeping. Lanaya had been grateful.

This posturing was all too easy.

With a soundless sigh, Mythal continued down the memory of stairs, to walk the dream-rotunda. To pass beside the _sa’vunin_ where her new husband had once painted an impression of her Temple in the south.

Her husband, Fen’Harel. _How strange._

A flicker of unexpected movement caught her eye, and Virlath forgot to become herself.

She watched. The golden icon at the heart of the fresco panel was moving – spinning – emitting a pulse of power every few seconds. With each revolution, the icon’s gold glowed shining silver. Familiar magic, in its way, and as she held up her left hand, its mark a flaring silver echo, she sought the resonant frequency that would **open _._**

  * Like opening a rift, or closing it.



The Dalish voice came at the same time as her own thoughts, soft and faraway. Simultaneously, silent force transferred, and pulled the entire panel from the wall. It swung as if it were a door, hinged on its leftmost edge.

And since it was a door, here in the Fade, Mythal walked through.

****

Was it new to her, this place? At first no spark of recognition lit, from Elvhenan or modern recollection. The ancient goddess wandered, puzzling over its layout. In size it seemed as the Wellspring, vast and shining. Yet the light filtering through the azure skies above was golden, the climate as balmy as that within the Arbor Wilds.

This was no underground prison for his soul – or if it was, it had been conjured not to seem so. Mythal walked out into the sunshine, felt the heat upon her face and hands. This was a garden, sown with laurel and lilies, a small stolen moment of perfection. A path led into an unmarked archway, golden mist obscuring its destination.

Again she went forward, ignoring the temptation to sink down and rest among the flowers. The mist tingled on her skin, its magic an airy counterpoint to the silver liquid gilt of an eluvian. A warm, seductive breeze blew through the mist, equally unreal. And then the scent of honey. Now _that_ reminded her of Arlathan, however reluctant this latest Dalish incarnation was to remember. She’d walked within that city. _This is real._

  * This _was_ real. 



Mythal shrugged off the newcomer’s voice. This was the Fade, and she was the stronger. The path led through the arch, its cobblestones singing as she walked, a hymn of praise and glory. A triumphal entrance. Yet the great Hall that it led to was not thronged with cheering crowds, or full of elven life, but empty, cold, and dead.

It was no more than she expected or deserved, and Mythal shrank back in dismay. Yet she was still not prepared to change to the modest Dalish robes and outlook preferred by her youngest self. She stopped just inside the courtyard, taking a pace to the left to have white marble wall at her back instead of mist, and counted ways.

Seven arches in each side; four sides of the hall. Each arch was bare of decoration. Golden mist hung in each.

The cobbled paths from each converged: first all the paths emerging from the archways on a side; and from them four straight paths that made a single crossroads at the centre. A bell hung there, huge and gold, suspended from the awning of a covered shrine constructed from that same cold marble.

Dread crept into her veins, and sudden suspicion. The unmarked openings; the silent bell; the emptiness. This place made no concessions to its visitors. Might she be the first – besides its creator – to journey here?

  * _All magic and all virtue can be represented by geometry._



The entrance she had come from lay at the midpoint of a side; the bell in its marble shrine a hundred yards in front of her. The cobblestones below her feet were small and square; and when she bent to observe them, each had embossed on its surface a copy of the entire hall, with seven golden notches etched along each side. A tiny silver pearl of magic glimmered at the centre, spinning like the icon on her _sa’vunin._ Then, abruptly: nothing.

She straightened up, both wary and intrigued – and saw the large gold bell was glowing, sparkling with pearls.

Whatever was happening here was either conscious of her or sublimely ignorant, and so she began to walk up to the bell. With each step she took in this – his – Hall, the golden bell was silvered; and when she looked around, the mist had silvered too. A cleansing of Heaven, making way for… for… what came in place of certainty?

  * I used to think it was doubt, but…



Mythal chuckled. She’d always needed a sense of humour, particularly when dealing with Fen’Harel. It was a promising sign that this Virlath had developed one in keeping with her own. “Where is he?” she muttered, as she inspected the bell. It was fully silver now; and the sense of dread – as at the door to Solasan – had dissipated. In the bell she saw reflection: the sight of Solas sleeping, his elvhen form neatly ranged out on a bed.

“I see,” she murmured. “Somewhere in the Fade nearby. And so, nearby must also be…”

A flickering pulse of magic from the bell, and Mythal turned around to watch the silvering spiral coil and curl and coalesce. The name was clearly unnecessary, she concluded: a thought was summons enough to call.

“I am Serenity,” said the spirit, once it had settled into the semblance of a form. “Please say your name.”

  * _My name is Virlath Al’var Lavellan._



“My name?” echoed Mythal, All-Mother, Goddess, Protector of the People. “I have had many names.”

She contemplated Serenity. It stood in respectful stillness on the path, a being of soft white light whose voice and figure lay at the balance of male and female: neither one nor the other; androgynous.

“Please say your name,” insisted this creature, and Virla found herself flung mercilessly to the surface.

“My name is Virlath Al’var Lavellan,” she said, as calmly as she could.

Serenity inclined its head in a gesture of respect. “ _Andaran atish’an,_ Virlath Al’var Lavellan. Please follow me.”

It floated away, and Virla – an aspect wearing Mythal’s robes – ran after her. “Where are we?”

The spirit carried on, not hearing, or affecting not to hear. Only when they were passing through another archway near a corner and Virla had repeated the question, did she get an answer: “On the Vir Haurasha.”

Virla nodded, pleased to have a handle for the place, even if it only referred to the all-pervading scent of honey. Somewhere long ago within her, there was the faintest echo of a chuckle. Angrily, she dismissed it. She was not here to be Mythal’s puppet either, no matter how strong the old soul was. This was _her_ dream; _she_ was alive.

The golden glow of the mist dissipated, and Virla found herself standing in the middle of a library – scattered like the Vir Dirthara, with floating halls and chambers at all levels. Serenity had vanished, and so had the archway they had come through. In front was a large ceremonial dish, filled to the brim with honey. When she leant over it to inhale its fragrance, she caught the scent of dawn lotus. Unwilling to touch or taste it, she walked on by. There were bookshelves lining the walls of the chamber that she walked within – incomplete and fractured.

The shelves were filled with books. She wondered whether they were readable or nonsense, and reached for one with a turquoise cover. Yet as she closed her hand around its spine, a bubbling noise and a sudden growl behind her made her start. The book crashed on to the marble tiles; and Virla’s spirit sword leapt to her hand.

The honey had risen up from the dish, forming an elven woman with pale cream skin and hair the same golden colour as the honey, who stood in the middle of the dish and levelled a gilded spear at Virla. Her only garment was a strip of gold-embroidered crimson fabric tied around her waist, barely reaching her upper thighs. She was tall, and stunningly beautiful. Power and fury rolled off her, intimidating and impressive in equal measure.

“You are not authorised to touch those books,” she hissed, in a dialect so obscure it almost sounded dwarven.

The First of Clan Al’var bit back the curt retort that Mythal might have given, and sheathed her sword, stepping away from the shelves and towards the spearwoman. She did not need her sword to cast magic, after all.

“Who has authority here?” asked Virla, mildly, in lieu of an apology.

The woman lowered her spear. She looked surprised. “He did not send you here?”

“Who?”

Magic flowed from the wall of bookshelves opposite, and Solas stepped in. From the pained look he gave her, he seemed even more aggrieved than the spearwoman; and Virla winced. Yet it was to the latter he spoke, striding across with his hands gripped behind his back, and tilting his chin up to address her face and not her chest.

“Defiance,” he said, the syllables clipped. “Was it you who brought this lady here?”

She smirked, tossing her hair back in a way that set Virla’s teeth on edge. “No, my lord.”

“Very well,” said Solas. He frowned, his lips compressed together. “We will not tarry here.”

Defiance’s eyes flashed. She shook her head, pouting. “My lord! You will not let us entertain you before you go? Your new lady is short, and presumptuous – she tried to take a book! – but I am sure we can find a use for her.”  

Solas drew himself up, with all his considerable icy haughtiness. “You are mistaken. We leave now.”

The bookshelves and the Vir Haurasha disappeared, the spearwoman’s puzzled expression sitting oddly on her face, as if all of her pride had melted. There was history here as well, no doubt, judging from Solas’ anger.

Virla found herself standing with Solas in a more familiar setting: a Dalish camp. Banners of Clan Sulan waved above them. The camp and halla pen were empty, with belongings strewn around the aravels as if abandoned in a hurry. “Why here? What happened?” asked Virla. Then she added, quietly: “And why were you so angry?”  

“I do not wish to discuss it now,” said Fen’Harel, looking anywhere but at her. Then he took a breath, and met her eyes for the first time since he had found her. “Briefly, then, how did you get in there?”

“I came through from a memory of Skyhold, to a garden then a courtyard with a bell. It turned from gold to silver, and I saw you sleeping. Then Serenity found me. It led me here, then left me. Is that brief enough?”

“Yes, thank you.” He paused, and the ice in his eyes thawed to softness. “I owe you an apology, _vhenan._ ”

She smiled, though there was an edge to it. “For what? For assuming I had deliberately invaded your privacy?”

He looked uncomfortable, but still held her gaze. “I was not ready to show you that. I… it is unfinished business.”

“That seemed apparent. Defiance… was she another Linarla?”

“Not _she_ – it,” insisted Fen’Harel. “And no. Defiance was a companion of Falon’Din. It does not know he is gone, or that I have his memories. It does not know who you are, nor that we are married. _Ir abelas, ‘ma lath._ ”

_Lath_ , not _sa’lath,_ noted Virla, and the slight hesitation before the word _companion_. The memories were affecting him, no matter how hard Solas tried to maintain perspective of himself as Dirthamen. Yet was she not Mythal? She reached out for his hand. “You’re not alone now, Solas,” she reiterated. “Tell me about this camp.”

They sat down on a nearby log while Fen’Harel explained how he had tracked the scent of the silvery lyrium-bearing liquid from the halla as far as Camp Sulan. He’d been aware that Lanaya and Virla had lost his own trail, but had determined not to lose time in following his own path since the scent was dissipating rapidly. When he had arrived, the scene that greeted him was as he had reconstructed: a deserted Dalish camp, with signs of a hasty departure. “Their weapons were abandoned,” he pointed out. “I fear they were taken prisoner.”

“And not a shot was fired,” said Virla, noting the arrows still in their quivers. “It’s very strange. Was there any latent trace of magic? Any witnesses? A spirit, or a sylvan?”

“No obvious magical disturbance, save the scent I traced. The camp was set away from sylvans. Like you, I thought that spirits might have watched – but so far I’ve found none within the Fade that saw what happened.”

“What next, then?”

“I am sleeping in an abandoned wolf den near here. When I wake, I will make my way back to our camp.”

Virla nodded, already planning ahead. “We have an addition. One of Lanaya’s clanmates, a hunter: Idrilla.”

She described the woman – and her aggressive, fearful attitude towards the humans – so that Solas would know what to expect when he woke and returned. Her questions about Serenity and Defiance and that bell could wait.

****

The preparations served them well. Solas arrived with the news, and rapidly arranged for the group to split into two separate parties. He and Virla would accompany the Keeper and Idrilla on the fastest route to Camp Sulan, taking Zephyr, Mi’nan, Bua and Maryden’s mount Melody through dense woods to the south-east. The minstrel would ride in the wagon, and Cullen would lead the others east on wider paths towards the great Brecilian Temple.

“I would like to send word to Evangeline at the Templar Sanctuary,” said the Commander, pointing to the map. “She will be expecting me back, and I do not wish to worry her. It is around two hours by horse each way.”

“I can do that,” said Cole, tracing the road northwards with his finger. “Evangeline is my friend.”

“Templars?” said Idrilla, her head whipping around. “I was attacked by a Templar yesterday! A man with a brown moustache, and mail armour with fur on it. And now our clan is gone! Keeper, how can you trust these shems?”

Cullen stiffened. “That sounds like Sullivan. He was suffering from hallucinations, and went missing weeks ago.”

The Keeper’s face was grim as she paused in saddling Bua. She glared at Cullen. “Lyrium is a dangerous mistress. Do you not have means to prevent such escapes? What have you done to find him?”

“I was saving lives in Denerim! I only heard about it after it had happened!”

Solas pinched his nose at the bridge, as if the tensions in the air were painful to experience. “We will discuss this later,” he commanded, in a tone that brooked no argument. “Keep a careful lookout at all times. Tonight we will reconvene at the Brecilian Temple. The first group there, secure water and a defensible position.”

“You obey this flat-ear,” murmured Idrilla to her Keeper, in Virla’s hearing, as they set out. “Why?”

“Solas is an ancient elf,” said Lanaya, choosing the simplest explanation. Her face was still pink. “One of the original elvhen. Once, he lived in Arlathan. He is also bonded to Inquisitor Lavellan, and is Second of Clan Al’var.”

Idrilla’s eyes widened as they rested on Solas, loping on Zephyr several yards ahead. The information seemed to have done its job in quelling her incipient rebellion, but Virla kept an eye on her all day. No new insights came from their visit to Camp Sulan, though Lanaya took the opportunity to collect the clan’s most valuable possessions: the bows and arrows; scrolls and jewellery; medicines and potions; ironbark, leather and horn. They decided, after much deliberation, to leave the aravels in situ, with a note pinned for the clan should they return.

The paths north-east were empty; no intruders, human, elf or sylvan, barred their way. As they approached the Brecilian Temple, though, a nasty shock awaited them. Two huge guards stood at the great stone entrance. Virla, who had taken point, pulled Mi’nan up, and gestured _silence_ behind her. Now what could _the Qunari_ want here?

  



	6. Questioning

She’d seen that look on Solas’ face before. It wasn’t the pained look he seemed to reserve for her, the one he employed when she’d inadvertently trespassed against his inner Rules; nor the regret that so often softened his features in repose. Nor yet was it the terrifying calm that swept across his face before he dealt a killing blow to some poor wretch with life or family – someone who had chosen (or been chosen) for the wrong side in a war.

No: this was anger, pure and simple. Rage: that even in this forest, lay the Qun. A sacrilege, abhorrent like the darkspawn, or the Wardens with their monstrous, dark-souled taint. Corypheus upon a mural of Mythal.

Thoughts of Mythal, and of her last night’s dream, were more terrifying than those of these Qunari.

Virla shook herself out of her daydreaming, and watched as Solas transfigured into Fen’Harel. Gone were the mild-mannered apostate’s gaze that made him seem a priest in soldier’s garb, the absorbed intensity of the artist or philosopher. Fury stiffened his spine like lava etched in walls of rock, imbuing every action with a fierce determination. He drew himself up on Zephyr’s back, a general in command. Waiting for her to finish her report.

How long since they had planned a fight together?

Not since she had known he was Fen’Harel. Not since she had seen him turn an army into stone.

And as for stone… Lanaya had barely spoken since they’d left the deserted campsite, preserving a Keeper’s cold dignity in the face of her clan’s strange absence from their home. Even out of earshot of Idrilla she’d refused to take a view on whether they’d been kidnapped or persuaded to desert. Silence wrapped around her like a robe.

Virla’s hands tightened on Mi’nan’s reins. She took a breath. “Two guards at the entrance. Qunari karashok,” she repeated, then added, for her Clan Sulan sisters’ benefit: “That means warriors, with greatswords. The entrance is a hundred yards from where the path turns up there, underneath an overhang. No other cover nearby.”

Solas was staring up the hill to where the path curved around a mass of rock, hiding the entrance from view, and them from the Qunari. He frowned. “There will be more inside. And it is drawing late.”

The Inquisitor – of the disbanded Inquisition – thought it through. “We could go back down, circle round through the forest and try to find the others. It is likely Cullen got here before us.”

Idrilla’s face darkened. “What use will he be?”

“He was the Commander of the Inquisition. He knows a thing or two about fighting,” came Virla’s tart rejoinder, before she could prevent herself. “Which reminds me, Qunari are vulnerable to cold and nature damage.”

“It may be best not to kill them,” said Solas unexpectedly. He sighed. “They might hold hostages.”

“You think they have our clan?” said Idrilla, her eyes flashing. Her hand ran over the arrows in her quiver, silently counting. “Three mages, and a hunter, against two warriors! Let’s take these guards and question them.”

“Perhaps…” said the Dread Wolf, keeping his gaze on the rocks at the top of the slope. His face glittered white from the silencing ward, and Virla could have sworn his ears pricked forward. “Yes. If we are careful. Keeper?”

Lanaya turned her head to face him. Dull guilt lay heavy in her aura, weighting the silence. Did she see her own damnation? Or fear she’d led her clan astray in following Fen’Harel? Virla shivered. Ought she have offered divine forgiveness when they dreamed last night? It seemed another blasphemy to think of having done so.

She listened, watched, let Solas propose his plan. His voice dropped softer than the swaying of the trees. The Keeper should stay with the horses, he advised, to ensure they did not flee and keep their line of retreat. Idrilla must creep to the top of the slope and be ready to knock the right-hand guard out with a full draw from stealth. Virla would change form to a raven, flying over the guards to land on any masonry that might provide a vantage point from which she could put the left-hand guard in stasis. Idrilla should shoot as soon as Virla shifted back to elven form. He himself would fly on Zephyr and hoist both immobilized guards into the air, bringing them…

He broke off, aura tight with suppressed irritation, and turned to Virla. “Do you remember the altar we passed?”

“We passed an old mossy stone block, waist-high,” she said, casting her mind back. “Is that what you mean?”

“It was once an altar,” said Solas, briefly, and at Idrilla’s curious look, added, with some asperity: “Don’t look surprised, _da’len_. These woods have been inhabited by elves since long before this Temple here was built.”

Beneath him, Zephyr growled, picking up on his mood, and Idrilla paled, looking down. “As you say, _hahren._ ”

“What of this altar?” asked Virla quickly, before the tensions could rise any further.

Solas laid a calming hand on Zephyr’s mane. “Assuming it was built according to standard pattern, there will be a hidden chamber underneath it, which I can open. We take the Qunari there, and find out what they know.”

It was perilous to delay any further, and she had no better idea. Killing the guards might risk the lives of any captives the Qunari held. Hesitation in removing them from their posts might let them call for reinforcements. Remembering the dozens of Qunari in ancient sites last summer – the ancient Sanctuary, the Deep Roads, the Vir Dirthara, the Darvaarad! – it would be wise to assume that this site would be equally well defended.

Virla looked around, and found no disagreement. “Very well. Let’s do this.” Passing Mi’nan’s reins to Lanaya, she cast the spell that transformed her body into a small black raven. Once Idrilla had dismounted and was making way to her position, she flew up into the air, taking care not to behave in any way unusual for a bird.

Following Solas’ instructions to the letter, she landed on a ledge wide enough and strong enough to support her, some twelve or fifteen feet above the ground. She eyed up the left-hand guard – right-hand from this angle – and calculated the trajectory she’d need for her spells to work. Normally she’d start with a lightning bolt, but for Qunari ice worked better. A disruption field followed quickly by Winter’s grasp: that would be the best tactic.

She’d just shifted, and cast the disruption field, and heard Idrilla’s bow sing out, when an elf ran out between the guards. Two blades gleamed golden on his back, then blue as she cast the ice spell. He reacted more quickly than she had expected, diving and rolling towards the shelter of the wall. Before he could move again, Solas had soared down like a vengeful god on Zephyr, angling a lightning bolt to paralyse him.

Idrilla cried out in shock, but Virla quickly realised that her bondmate’s instinct were correct, to take him too. If the man was escaping they were helping him; and if not then they had to silence him for now. Solas had lifted the bodies already, and because she’d been waiting for it she felt the pulse as he petrified them all – a soft temporary magic quite unlike the potent force he’d unleashed on the Viddasala. Virla transformed back, and flew across the empty ground – wings spread open in a glide – to land beside Idrilla. The huntress hadn’t moved.

“Quick, we have to ride!” she hissed, tugging at the woman’s arm. Grateful that Idrilla turned to obey without argument, she dashed down the slope. Somewhere high above, a griffon breached the canopy of the forest and disappeared, flying fast to the southwest where they’d come from. Breathing hard, they reached Lanaya and their mounts just as the sound of further cries of pursuit came from behind them through the Temple entrance.

So much for secrecy. Virla sprang on to Mi’nan’s back and spurred him down the path, leaning close into his neck to urge him forward. Behind her came Lanaya and Idrilla, their smaller horses managing the rough ground easily, and without the risk of antlers catching in the trees. Five minutes’ frantic gallop and they were there.

The Qunari would take time to mount their own horses, if they had any, so they had left pursuit behind for now.

Solas appeared to have already stowed their captives, for he was leading Zephyr down a flight of stairs. These steps seemed identical to the straight stone stairway that had opened up in the old Sanctuary, between murals depicting vallaslin. That image was so fresh it was hard to believe it was almost a year ago. _Damn demons._

Dismounting, Virla blinked the mirage away. “Are there any other exits to this place?” she called to Solas.

“Most likely,” replied Solas over his shoulder. His low voice echoed up the stairwell. “Were you pursued?”

“Yes,” she admitted, patting Mi’nan’s neck with the hand not still holding his reins. He was sweating and panting for breath after the wild ride through the forest. “We outrode them, but our track will be easy to follow.”

Her bondmate nodded in agreement. “Bring the mounts down. I will seal us in from below.”

She began to lead Mi’nan down twenty steps, Idrilla and Lanaya close behind her, careful to slow her pace to what the hart could manage. When they reached the foot of the stairwell, she could see a glowing golden disruption field hung hastily over the captives. Away from it, the dim blue light of veilfire torches in sconces on the wall showed curved stone arches, signs of earlier Elvhenan – and broken statues of Mythal, and bones.

Gravestones, like the crypt in the Cradle of Sulevin, with curved stone eggs.

“I hope there aren’t any revenants here,” she murmured to Mi’nan as she manoeuvred him into a side room. He was still panting for breath after the wild ride through the forest. It was cold and clammy down here, so she covered him with a blanket from the saddlebag and passed her spare ones out to Idrilla and Lanaya.

With the mounts safely secured in the side rooms, they returned to the main chamber, where the two Qunari karashok and the elf still lay immobilized under the golden dome. Their eyes were closed as if in sleep: both mercy, and a handicap, thought Virla, and typical of Solas. The smaller Qunari had dark bronzed skin and long curved horns; the larger was hornless with braided white hair. The elf had light brown skin and an unremarkable face you might see ten times in a crowd and not remember, marked with an indigo vallaslin to Dirthamen.

Solas had secured the entrance above, and now he gestured to the elven man. “Do you recognise him?”

The Keeper shook her head, looking puzzled. “He’s not from our clan,” added Idrilla, filling the silence.

The Dread Wolf nodded. “Stay back,” he advised them all. To Virla only, through the Veil, he added: _…and be ready with ice should anything go wrong. I am… not certain how this will play out._

A half-smile came to her lips, unseen: almost reassuring to hear him confess that he might need her.

He stepped into another side chamber, explaining that he needed chains. This underground complex must have a familiar pattern to him, he walked about it with such confidence even where the veilfire didn’t reach.

“How strong is that magic holding them?” asked Idrilla in an undertone once he had gone, fingering the knives at her belt. Virla thought she sounded nervous, her bravado fallen away since the disappearance of her clan.

Lanaya grimaced. “Very. The ancient’s power is great, _da’len_. Take care not to offend him.”

It was the first time she had spoken in an hour, and it was a warning. Idrilla stepped back into the shadows as Solas returned from sealing the entrance above. To hide, or attack? Virla hoped she wouldn’t do anything stupid.

As he passed her again she saw that he’d collected – or created? – some lengths of iron chain. Now he cloaked himself in a barrier, and stepped bodily into the field, apparently easily able to resist its paralysing effects. He secured the chains around the wrists and the ankles of each karashok in turn, binding them with a white magic that was unfamiliar even to the Inquisitor. But not to Mythal. Virla hid her flinch as the voice spoke in her mind.

  * Still so much to learn, _da’len._ We called it _vhe’renan’das._



Heart, voice, _nadas…_ must. Some kind of compulsion magic, which forces the wearer to tell the truth?

  * I had thought it forgotten until now.



The voice held a note of regret, which Virla found she shared. She’d known that Solas despised the Qunari as mindless drones, unable to summon the will to make a choice outside their training and the Qun. But this…? If Mythal spoke true, this seemed no better than Calpernia and the prison of Erasthenes, and worse than Cassandra’s capture of herself, or how the Inquisition treated prisoners. She hoped it would be over quickly.

Solas shifted the disruption field, and brought the larger karashok to its edge, reducing his paralysis. Collecting a torch, he sat down cross-legged in front of his prisoner, and let the veilfire light his own face and the Qunari’s.

Free to speak, the warrior glared at him, and at the silvery magic round his limbs. “I am ashamed.”

The Dread Wolf nodded slowly, accepting, then pointed the veilfire torch at the Dalish elf. “Who is this?”

The Qunari painfully turned his head to look at the immobilised man. “I do not know.”

Virla felt the magic’s pressure wax, as Solas asked another question: “Have you seen him before today?”

“Yes.”

Solas brought the veilfire torch back in front of him, illuminating the karashok once more. “Where?”

The Qunari rattled his chains as if by concentration of rage he might destroy the magic. Then, as Solas tightened his bonds again, the magic gleaming white, he reluctantly gave answer to the question. “On the dreadnought.”

Solas’ voice was as calm as a pool of liquid lyrium. “What brings a dreadnought to Ferelden?”

This time the response was faster, more abrupt. “The Arishok has questions. He looks for Fen’Harel.”

Idrilla stepped forward, ignoring both her Keeper’s warning and Solas’ direct instruction. “For _Fen’Harel_ …?!”

“The agents of Fen’Harel killed many of our people,” said the Qunari, not taking his eyes from Solas.

“Fen’Harel is one of our gods,” snapped Idrilla. “You should not anger him.”

“To call a thing falsely is to put out one's own eyes,” growled the karashok. “The others will learn that too.”

The hunter grabbed a knife from her belt, and would have brought it to the warrior’s throat had Solas not prevented her, his hand on her wrist as strong as dragonbone. “Patience, _da’len_. What others?”

The distraction had given the Qunari time to think. “All _bas_ ,” came the curt response. “You will all learn.”

 _Dirthara-ma._ Solas held his gaze. “Do you know what happened to the Dalish clan living near here?”

“I did not see.”

After a few more minutes of back-and-forth, then the same with the other karashok, Solas established that the warriors knew little more of use. If the Qunari had Clan Sulan, these warriors had not been made aware of it. Resenting his use of force, Idrilla had retreated to the wall, glaring equally at Solas and their captives. In an odd way it reminded Virla of Sera when the archer was younger, new to the Inquisition and puzzled by their ways.

Before long Idrilla grew tired of listening, and blurted out: “Why not wake up the elf and ask him?”

Lanaya winced. Solas answered with his usual hauteur that the third prisoner would wake in a minute, and continued his line of questioning. Once he had done that, he renewed his barrier and returned the second Qunari to the disruption field, taking the time to gently close the warrior’s eyes just as he had with the first.

He stared down at the elf, his face unreadable. Then, turning to each of his companions in turn, he laid a silent finger on his lips, and waited until each of them had acknowledged it – Idrilla the most reluctantly.

That done, he knelt down by the elf, and conjured a block of ice. Bringing fire to his hand, he melted a section in the top of it, creating a temporary pool of warm water held in the upper surface of the ice. Taking a white silk handkerchief from a pouch on his belt – a wedding present from Madame de Fer, no less – he dipped its end in the water. Before even Virla realised what he was about, he had pressed the damp cloth to the elf’s cheekbone.

After half a minute Solas stood and held it out for them to see. Dark blue ink stained the handkerchief.

The man must have been able to feel what he was doing, or he heard Idrilla’s gasp – hastily muffled – for with an extraordinary effort of will he opened his eyes. For a moment he looked blankly into Solas’ blue ones, the Dread Wolf’s impassive expression plain in the light of the torch that lay on the ground nearby. Then horror struck.

_And in its wake… relief?_

Immediately Solas weakened the field around him, enough for him to speak. “You know who I am _._ ”

“Yes,” said the elf. His face contorted in sudden terror. “Lord Fen’Harel, I am Mori. You promised to save me!”

Out of the corner of her eye, Virla caught Idrilla’s reaction: all colour had fled from her face. “If you know me,” said Fen’Harel to the imposter, “then you know I am no friend to the Qun. When did I say I would save you?”

  



	7. Petrifying

The temperature in the room had dropped, and it wasn’t caused by the ice slowly melting onto the flagstones. Solas had made no further attempt to weaken the field that held the strange elf, Mori, captive, so he lay shivering on the floor. Icy water seeped across his cheek, leaving tell-tale traces of diluted indigo ink across his nose and mouth. Virla felt suddenly sorry for the man. Whatever his true intentions were, or his relation to the Qun, his terror seemed quite genuine. She opened her mouth to persuade Solas to let him sit up…

…then closed it, remembering she had promised to stay silent. Blood sang in her veins like lyrium. _Focus._

“I sent you a letter,” said Mori, his eyes never wavering from Fen’Harel’s face. “Tallis sent me your answer!”

Virla imagined Solas trying to piece together the memories, his mind as quick and agile as his body was still and menacingly calm. His back was towards her, so she could not see his face. His hands were locked behind him in his eternal reminder to be patient. “An anonymous letter,” he concluded, coldly. “Your name is unfamiliar.”

Mori closed his eyes briefly, wincing. “I had taken pains to hide my identity. For obvious reasons. In case the letter was misplaced. I signed it Arvaarad. Yet when the answer returned you called me Mori, my nickname.”

“Clearly, since I do not remember that name, I cannot have written it,” said Solas, with a show of impatience.

“Then Tallis must have added it, or someone else,” concluded Mori with a groan. With an immense effort he struggled to his knees, the dark ink blotching the left side of his face like a mockery of vallaslin to Elgar’nan. His hands shook as he held them out. “My lord, I beg you. Help me. My Saarebas is missing. The Qunari will kill me!”

He had Solas’ full attention now, even if he did not realise it. The Viddasala’s defeat had not stopped the Qunari from experimenting on their mages, maddening them with lyrium. Fen’Harel frowned. “Go on,” he said, still curt. “Assume I never received your letter. If you seek to prove that you are worthy, omit no relevant detail.”

Mori drew himself up. “The former Viddasala, before she was killed by the Inquisition, approved certain experiments with lyrium. This Saarebas was one of hers. It could go mad. It could destroy this forest!”

“Does _it_ have a name? A description?”

“Ran,” supplied Mori, then, as if to be helpful, added: “Short for Asaaranda. I’m not fluent in Qunlat, my lord – I grew up as a slave in Tevinter – but they tell me it means thunderstorm. Tall, with bronze horns. Sewn-up lips.”

He must have been a peculiarly convincing convert to have been made an arvaarad, a keeper of mages, thought Virla, particularly if he did not speak the language. And presumably elves were under even more scrutiny among the Qunari leaders following Fen’Harel’s activities. No wonder he was frightened of the consequences.

Solas was silent for a few moments, before bending to pick up the torch that flickered still with greenish veilfire. His face was grim as he stared down at Mori. “You cannot accompany us.”

Mori blanched. “Then set me free,” he pleaded. “I have to find the Saarebas before anyone else does!”

It seemed a reasonable compromise, but Solas made no direct response. Instead he stepped across to Idrilla and brought the veilfire up to her face, with its snaking dark blue vallaslin. Dazzled by its bright proximity – not to mention that of the Dalish God of Betrayal – she looked terrified as well as furious. Her eyes gleamed with tears.

“What do you know, _Arvaarad_ ,” asked Solas, still illuminating Idrilla with the veilfire: “…of the Dalish elves?”

“I know they live outside the cities,” said Mori uneasily. The answer was obviously an equivocation, given the ink still dripping from his face, and he seemed to realise Solas would see through it. “I found a book in the temple about the Dalish elves, and used it to paint this design on my face. I thought that they might aid me.”

“You were planning to seek the help of the Dalish clan in this forest?” asked Fen’Harel, his voice silkily smooth.

“The Saarebas is weak to nature magic. I had read the Dalish were skilled with that.”

“You planned to kill your charge, then,” deduced Solas. Virla shivered. This wasn’t going well for Mori.

“No! I must persuade the Saarebas to return with me, or we will all be killed. That is what the Qun requires.”

“And what did I require of you, in that response you talked of?”

“You told me that I must continue with the Qun, turn double agent. This is the first opportunity I’ve had!”

“You failed the test,” said Solas, weakening the field around the elf still further. “Stand, and turn around.”

As Mori did so, working his stiff limbs slowly into submission, the Dread Wolf shone the light upon the two paralysed prisoners on the floor. “You heard them speak to me. You knew that they would hear your betrayal.”

“But they are Qu… Qunari,” stammered Mori. “You will k… kill them!”

Fen’Harel was ice now, deadly calm. “And make me your tool, and the agent of those who sent you?”

Mori fell to his knees, his eyes wild. “Then they will kill me.”

“No!” cried Idrilla. She grabbed Solas’ arm. “Lord Fen’Harel, I always made the offerings to you. Let this man go. Kill these two Qunari.”

“What care I for your offerings?” snarled Solas, finally losing his temper. “I thought I told you to be _silent_. Any more from you, _da’len_ , and I will kill this man myself.”

Idrilla gasped, and Virla hoped she knew it wasn’t a bluff. Fen’Harel might well do what he threatened.

His words cast silence, hanging in the air like an invisible static cage. Into that silence crept the sound of hooves above, approaching like a gathering storm. With practised estimation Virla guessed a dozen heavy warhorses. Qunari, then, most likely – and it sounded as if they’d stopped beside that altar sealing the entrance.

A mailed fist hammered on the altar. “The trail leads here,” declared a deep male voice. “Bring the gaatlok!”

Virla searched Solas’ face, close but dim with the veilfire now pointed at Mori trembling on the floor. The gaatlok she had once seen used – and used herself, with Bull’s advice – had but a short range. If they exploded the altar, could Solas paralyse all of the Qunari who came? Or petrify them? Who could he risk not harming?

A look of disgust – unveiled, this time – crossed Solas’ face. He slammed down the disruption field, freezing Mori in place, and set a wall of purple voidfire around it. “I would prefer they did not destroy the altar,” he said to Virla, and handed her the torch. “I will see what these Qunari have to say.”

He stalked towards the stairs as if he were a prince and this his throne room. Unwilling to play his compliant subject any longer, Virla passed the torch to Keeper Lanaya, and pressed a stamina potion into Idrilla’s hand. “Don’t touch that purple fire,” she warned them, just in case. “Be ready to fight, but only if Solas allows it.”

Idrilla’s eyes flashed with fury. “He’s not really your husband, is he?”

“Fen’Harel?” Virla thought fast. “This is not the time for explanations. Remember that the prisoners can hear.”

“Were you ever going to tell me?” The hunter’s eyes darted between Virla and her Keeper, settling on the latter.

Lanaya looked as if she would prefer not to answer that, but composed herself. “I planned to tell the whole clan at once, and explain the consequences for us,” she said, with a meaningful look at the ring of fire. “So, yes.”

Idrilla took a shaky breath. “ _Ma serannas_ , Keeper,” she said, her voice breaking slightly on the last word.

The immediate danger of Idrilla lashing out seemed to be averted, so Virla crossed the chamber, reaching the foot of the staircase as Solas called out a warning: “Halt! I have your people down here. Let us talk.”

A pause, and then the same deep voice that had called out earlier growled: “I do not talk to _bas_. Continue.”

This time, Virla felt Solas gather the power from the Fade. Invisible and swift, it shot up through the earth, a piercing spear of stone: flint-sharp, fearful. Above, a Qunari soldier screamed.

“What did you do?” whispered Virla, running up to stand by Solas. His face was shrouded in the shadows.

“I petrified their leader,” came the softly chilling response. “They are not yet sure if it was fatal. Go to the foot of the stairs. I must unseal the altar to talk with them, before they can prime the gaatlok.”

She stood her ground, a hand on his arm. “What if they have saar-qamek? A poisoned spear…”  

“My reflexes have not been dulled by age, _vhenan_ ,” said Solas, his voice abruptly tender. “Yet… I am indebted to you for the reminder. Many a veteran commander has been undone by complacency, or a failure to anticipate a new tactic. We must be on our guard.”

The Inquisitor nodded, and slipped back down the stairs, turning at the bottom to watch as Solas unsealed the entrance. The altar sank downwards as it had before, forming the final step of the staircase to the surface. It was dark outside, but a shaft of moonlight lit the side of a silvery barrel of gaatlok as it rolled into the gap.

She held her breath. The gaatlok had been primed.

Solas had seen it too. He flung a blast of energising magic at it, tossing it into the air with a single smooth movement of his left hand. A second later, as the gaatlok reached the zenith of its flight, he threw a fire blast with his right. Virla blinked as the sky exploded into flame: orange streaks across the blackened sky. That familiar metallic burning scent held memories of terror. She prayed no trees would catch alight from the wreckage.

The distraction was useful: at the moment of the explosion he transformed into a falcon and soared up to the surface. A quick look over her shoulder showed that Lanaya had the situation under control for now, so Virla made herself a raven and flew up to the top of the stairs, hiding in the shadows to watch the scene unfold.

It always took her a moment to adjust to the bird’s eye view – particularly when said bird was at ground-level. By the time she’d focused her eyes, Solas stood – several yards away directly facing her – at the centre of the dozen assembled Qunari. Gone were his travelling robes, replaced by Fen’Harel’s gold armour. His right hand grasped an intricate glowing staff he’d clearly just now conjured from the Fade, white light blazing from its fulcrum.

Illusory or real, he had their full attention – and her own. The god the Dalish misremembered, born anew.

“Why do you trespass in this forest?” he asked. His voice rang out through the trees.

He had spoken in Qunlat – her spirit understood the words – and thus gave no excuse for lack of comprehension. The staff’s light pointed at the stone Qunari leader, then swung lazily around the others, threatening a repeat.

Having traversed the circle, Solas fixed his gaze on a tall and dark-skinned hornless Qunari male, who the others appeared to be deferring to. The man glared back. “It is not our way to debate with bas.”

Solas shrugged, and – almost casually – petrified the speaker.

Another Qunari, who growled with rage, and made to swing an axe at Fen’Harel, was likewise turned to stone.

It was theatre, playing with men’s lives, and daring them to see the path to wisdom. Solas stepped forward, raising an eyebrow at a fourth Qunari, who scowled back. “Will no-one answer my question?”

“We follow orders,” said the man he had illuminated. “Only duty endures.”

“You speak the truth,” said Solas, and the man visibly relaxed. Slightly. “Whose orders are you following?”

“The Arishok,” said a fifth Qunari, and he pointed at the first Qunari statue, the one who had been petrified by a bolt of magic shot up through the ground. “That… was the Arishok.”

Solas’ hand tightened momentarily on the staff, but he spoke without pausing. “Then you are the Beresaad. The best of them, indeed, for which Arishok would travel into deepest Brecilia without his choicest soldiers?”

The fifth Qunari still seemed confused, and turned to the man beside him. “Are we not in Ferelden?”

“Of course we are in Ferelden, you stupid cow,” responded the sixth Qunari, rolling his eyes. “The Brecilian Forest is in Ferelden. Didn’t you listen to the humans that we captured?”

The Dread Wolf swung the light around with effortless speed, pointing it at the new speaker. “What humans?”

“A warrior and a – thing with knives.” The Qunari shivered. “We found them hiding underneath the fortress.”

It must be Cullen and Cole. Virla shifted uncomfortably, her feathers fluffing up. What had happened to the others: to Maryden, and Vel, and Theriel?

Solas continued to appear indifferent. “Why did you not kill them?” he asked, as if it were of no moment.

The Qunari were silent for some moments. Those who had not yet spoken looked as if they were pretending to be huge bronze trees with horns. The two who had been brave – or terrified – enough to speak most recently stared at each other, as if trying to figure out which one could give the answer that the crazy saarebas wanted.

“The Arishok wanted…” began the fifth Qunari, nervously.

“Rasaan has them,” started the sixth Qunari, at the same time. He glared at the man beside him, who subsided.

Virla tried to remember Leliana’s long-ago lessons on the structure of the Qun, in the days before they had literally sunk the alliance by allowing the Venatori to blow up the Qunari dreadnought. Harder as a bird, doing memory, but it came: Rasaan was a Tamassran, heir to the Ariqun who led both Tamassrans and Ben-Hassrath.

“Rasaan?” asked Solas, as if he did not also know as much – and presumably far more – than she herself did.

“She will not release them until they have answered her questions. They have refused.”

A frown crept over Solas’ face, as if in echo of their anger at the humans’ defiance. “What questions?”

“She would not let us know.”

The fifth Qunari’s eyes widened, as if he had had a bright idea. “Maybe we should take this bas to Rasaan.”

“You stink of desperation,” said the sixth Qunari, shaking his head at his comrade. “What if he kills Rasaan too?”

“Rasaan is clever,” persisted the fifth Qunari. “She will tell him he can have the mirror if he helps her.”

Virla tilted her raven’s head to the side. An eluvian, in the Brecilian Temple? Now that was strange. If Solas had known about this one then surely he would have used it, rather than the one to the west of the forest. There would have been no need to drag that wagon through the forest, to bring that eluvian eastwards and eventually to Estwatch. She narrowed her eyes. Maybe it was broken. Maybe this was a bluff.

“I am not interested in helping you,” said Solas. The Veil trembled with anticipation.

The fourth Qunari had not taken his eyes from Solas’ face since he had last spoken. Now he growled. “Never. It is no use. This bas will turn us all to stone, despite our answers. He has no honour.”

“Mastery of the self is mastery of the world,” quoted Solas. It sounded dangerously compelling in Qunlat, and Virla wondered how the Qun had been twisted, through those centuries, to become a weapon of enslavement.

The fourth Qunari swore at him. “You dare to quote the Qun at me?”

“What else would you listen to?” asked Solas. Without any warning he cast a wave of dispelling magic.

The three stone Qunari came to life again, the axe-wielder crashing his weapon heavily into the soft earth at his feet. Virla cawed from surprise. Had Solas voluntarily released the Arishok? His Beresaad warriors stared from one to another in shock, then straightened up, and looked to the Arishok for orders. The man himself seemed stunned, still, rubbing his arms as if he’d temporarily forgotten who he was.

Solas stepped forward until he was right in front of the Qunari general, staring into his eyes.  “Leave this forest,” he commanded. “Now. Take your soldiers with you, and your minder Rasaan. Leave the humans for me.”

To everyone’s amazement, the Arishok turned on his heel and marched away. Slowly, the Beresaad followed.

As soon as the last of them – the fourth Qunari, the bravest one – had gone, still looking over his shoulder at the bas who had quoted the Ashkaari, Virla transformed back. She laid a hand on Solas’ gilded arm. “What next?”

  



	8. Tracking

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The DA trailer released recently galvanised me into starting work again on this story - I'd been stuck with this chapter for a while. Interesting to see they've made a connection with the lyrium idol from DA2 and we might not have to wait beyond DA4 to see something more of the Dread Wolf. If they somehow manage to ruin Solas' character arc then I want to have an alternative future for him written out here first!

Solas had seemed not to hear her question. His gaze – fixed on the distant point where the Qunari soldiers had vanished into the forest – was so intent she feared he’d burn a hole in the Veil by staring through it. Even his gilded armour was unnaturally hot to the touch, his aura crackling with power. Virla drew back, uncertain.

Then he closed his eyes, and pushed the entire magical illusion back into the Fade. The effort caused the Veil to thin momentarily, making the dark forest seem alive with darker shadows, before it thickened once again to normal pressure. The sensation was dizzying: like seeing through six eyes instead of two.

In ordinary robes, the Dread Wolf let his power ebb away, and became a man. Somewhere, Mythal laughed.

  * _He was always a man, da’len._



“We must get rid of this Arvaarad, Mori, first,” said Solas. Perhaps he _had_ heard her. “I do not trust him, and his presence is a complication we could do without. Yet his insolence is not sufficient reason to kill him.”

He was in an uncompromising mood, and, damn him, _right_ : they could not go in search of Cullen and Cole until they’d secured their line of retreat. Virla thought back. “Why did he want you to kill the two Qunari warriors?”

Solas frowned. “A good question. It hardly seems likely to be arrogance.”

“You reacted as if it were,” said Virla, surprised.

“I was playing for time,” he confessed. The moon above cast shadows of the surrounding pine trees, sharp and black against the silvered ground. Above them, a solitary owl hooted, searching for prey.

Virla shivered, remembering mirrors; falling; Falon’Din. “What did you do to the Arishok?”

“What I did will not last,” said Solas, a note of warning in his voice. “Those who have been petrified remain suggestible for some few minutes after the effect has been lifted. By now he will have begun to recover.”

Gripping his forearm again, the cold cloth rough under her hand, Virla spoke urgently: “Then we have to rescue Cullen and Cole. Whatever the Rasaan wants with them, it can’t be good. And if the Arishok tells her of your actions, and that you wanted the humans left for you, they might then kill them in revenge!”

Solas shook his head, his expression sceptical. “How do you know…” he began, then flinched as the Veil cracked audibly around them. A huge flare of white light lit the sky above the canopy, and lightning sparked, forking and twisting in the air. Virla’s skin sang sharp with static, hastily damped as Solas’ barrier swept over them both.

“That came from the opposite direction,” said Virla, pointing to where the lightning had appeared from, somewhere back to the west. “The Qunari went the other way. Could it be the Saarebas that Mori mentioned?”

“Whatever it is, it’s reckless,” said Solas grimly, turning on his heel to look. “Hold the barrier.”

He closed his eyes, sensing through the Veil, she guessed, and so he only felt the surge of power, and didn’t see the violet bolt of lightning that hit a mighty tree fifty yards away. His eyes flew open as its branches burst into flame. A deafening scream of rage and pain rose from the forest all around; and echoed in her own heart too.

“ _Fenedhis,”_ swore Solas, and suddenly he was no longer beside her, but halfway to the burning tree and casting ice, sweeping out a blizzard from the Veil. Virla renewed their barriers before activating a glyph of resurgence, drawing on the spirits of the forest to assist the tree, to heal its charred and smoking bark. Its limbs jerked, the spirit in it struggling to hold its form. “Hold on!” called Solas to it, still speaking elven, but it was too late.

The tree was shudderingly angry – branches, twigs and snow and ash cast wide – and it was no stretch of the imagination now to see it as a greater fear demon, burning with fire and stretching the Veil around it. Six of its massive branches became appendages at its back, sparking a web of Fade-green lightning: forty feet tall, as large as a demon of Pride, as tall as any of the trees around it. Its body/trunk was partly translucent, mottled black and white – Fade-touched, like the giant bulbous green-eyed spiders that now were crawling from the forest – and suddenly she was remembering the Vir Dirthara, with its Librarians gone mad. _They are unwell._

“Get back!” At her lover’s command, Virla jumped backwards, in time for Solas to protect them with a towering wall of ice. The tree/demon lashed fire against it, and tiny spiders tried to scale the wall. “Don’t hurt it!”

Before she could ask why not, behind them, someone called out. “Lord Fen’Harel!”

Virla looked over her shoulder. Running towards them was the Tevinter elf Vel, his daggers glittering in the blue-white light of Solas’ magic. It spoke much for their man’s courage that he ran towards them: he looked terrified.

“Where are the others, Vel?” asked Virla, almost shouting. It was hard to make herself heard over the crackling of the lightning, and hissing of the steam rising from the demon’s fire on the ice.

“Cullen and Cole were up ahead…” said Vel, leaning over to catch his breath, “…and I was riding between them and the wagon. Suddenly there were twenty Qunari surrounding them. Too many for us all to fight! They didn’t see me, so I galloped back to Theriel and Maryden to raise the alarm. There was a cave nearby; somehow we got the wagon in there. Then I saw the flare above the trees, quite close. It was dark by then so I left the horse in the cave with them and snuck out on foot. I hope that I did right, Lord Fen’Harel? We couldn’t have fought them!”

He must have seen the gaatlok barrel explosion. “Thank you, Vel,” said Virla, quietly, and looked to Solas.

“Kill the spiders,” said Solas, without preamble. Sweat was pouring down his brow as he renewed the ice, and flung a ward in the direction of the stairwell. “Try to prevent anything getting down those stairs.”

Vel – who must after all have been used to Fen’Harel’s command style in Aratishan – nodded shakily, and lost no time on channelling his fear by driving his weapon into the nearest spider. Virla spread another barrier, and hit out with her spirit sword, careful not to use any spells that might reach out beyond the ice wall.

The demon cried out, as they killed the first of the spiders: “ _Bana’vhenadahl, banal’vhen!_ ” Its voice was deep and sonorous, and all around she felt the sylvans hearken to its call – whispering angrily.

“ _Tel’enfenim,_ ” responded Solas, his voice piercing like lightning through the ice and Veil. He’d bent the wall of ice around the demon, encircling it. “I will keep the ways of the forest. Sleep, and I will root out these intruders!”

“You murdered sleep!” screamed the demon. It smashed a branch through the ice, entangled with vines and grasping an orb of fire; it narrowly missed Solas’ head. “Those who you instructed to forget, remember!”

Solas stepped back hastily. “I will make amends! Remember what you are to this forest…”

“What are they saying?” muttered Vel to Virla, as they fought off the spiders that swarmed round Solas’ feet. The ground was shaking, its tremors like a hyped-up version of Bull’s earthshaking strike. Vel looked sick, and it wasn’t just the demon’s Fade-lightning. She tossed him a healing potion.

“Drink this. Fen’Harel is trying to talk the demon down.”

Vel drank the potion, tossed the glass away, then plunged his daggers into another spider’s back. Ichor sprayed out, black acid everywhere. “That’s easier than killing it?!” he muttered, as he wiped his face with his sleeve.

Solas had heard him. “This is the _vhenadahl_ of this part of the forest,” he snarled, switching back to Common. “The eldest tree. A true elf would know that it should not be killed! Virlath…”

The demon was still thrashing in its prison of ice, like an angry wasp in a jar. “Yes?”

“The Veil here is intact. Something else is keeping this vhenadahl awake, interfering with the rhythm of the Veil. We must assume the lightning strike on this tree was intentional, and that the interference is deliberate. Send Lanaya and Idrilla up to help us clear these spiders. I must stay here. You need to find and check the roots.”

She was busy killing spiders, using her disruption field to charge her blade. “The routes to where?”

Her husband flashed her a look of irritation, before his eyes widened in understanding. “The tree roots, _vhenan_.”

Enlightenment dawned. “You think something may have corrupted the vhenadahl’s roots?”

He nodded, sombre. “Explore the chamber with care, _‘ma lath._ I am afraid this may be a long night.”

Abandoning her current target, Virla ran across to and down the stairway to the ancient chamber. To her relief, the people were as she had left them: Lanaya and Idrilla by the wall, and all three prisoners still held by voidfire.

“What’s going on?” asked the Keeper in an urgent undertone, as Virla reached them. The tremors were muffled here, the fighting barely audible. “I would have come to check, but I did not like to leave Fen’Harel’s prisoners.”

“Have they been any trouble?” asked the Inquisitor. Lanaya shook her head. “Good. Then you two go up and help Vel and Solas kill some spiders. I have a task to do down here.”

Idrilla scowled and opened her mouth as if she were about to refuse, but the Keeper broke in first. “Vel’s here? What about Commander Cullen? And the others?”

Virla glanced over her shoulder at the prisoners in their cocoon of spells. The elf Mori, the viddathari Arvaarad, seemed asleep. Closer to the brazier, the horned Qunari was snoring. The other karashok, with braided hair, lay on his side where Solas had placed him, his eyes half-open and watchful. She mistrusted them all.

“I cannot explain here, in front of the prisoners,” she said firmly, willing Lanaya to be patient. Tiny fearling spiders were already creeping down the stairs, blighting the stone. She immolated the fearlings with a careless hand, and used her best Inquisitor’s voice to command. “Go now, or they’ll be overrun!”

Thankfully they departed without further questioning, and she could focus on the next priority. Solas had said _explore the chamber_ , so she lit a torch with veilfire. The room with the mounts was closest to the direction of the vhenadahl, so she went there first. Zephyr was asleep, curled up in a bundle of fur and talons. The horses were huddled at the other end of the room, with Mi’nan in between. He looked thirsty, and she stooped to fill an iron pot with fire-melted water, hoping that it wasn’t breaking some ancient prohibition.

As she collected the veilfire torch and swept it around the room, feeling for any strange ripples in the Veil, she caught sight of a lever set into the wall. It reminded her of those found at the Temple of Dirthamen. Before testing it, she collected her staff and travelling pack, ready-stocked with potions and tonics. Only then did she put her hand out to pull the lever, trusting herself to deal alone with whatever effect it would cause.

The lever slid down easily, with the faintest of clicks. Nothing else happened. Perhaps it was broken.

Shaking her head, Virla returned to the main chamber and tried the side-room adjacent to the one she’d just left. This one was littered with old, abandoned weapons – rusted axes and daggers, heavy maces and greatswords – but on the wall was another lever, identically placed. This time, almost invisible even by the light of veilfire, she saw an elven glyph below it, its surface partly scrubbed away. Only the fingers of a hand and the edge of a disc remained. Yet it was enough for her to conclude the levers were important after all, and she renewed her search. Six side-rooms, six levers? _Let’s see._

The hornless Qunari warrior lay near the wall without an opening, and his eyes followed her around the room each time she emerged, another lever depressed. Faint sounds of fighting continued from above, interspersed with Solas’ harsh commands or entreaties – she’d learned to hear his voice even through stone it seemed.

The final side-chamber was half-submerged in water, and she had to cast a bridge of ice across it before she could reach the lever. This one ought to do _something_ at least, or she was nowhere. Belatedly, as she laid her hand on it for balance, she wondered if Mythal had ever known the intricacies of these mechanisms.

  * _The Veil forbids the sharing of our memories, child. It is an effort even to warn you…_



Virla’s feet slid suddenly on the ice, and, from reflex, she clutched at the lever with her free hand. _Warn?_ The final lever pressed down as easily as the first, but this time a grating sound from the main chamber heralded success. She slithered back, running out into the main chamber with her staff at the ready, and found a new opening in the far wall, only reachable by passing over the prisoners. The watching Qunari karashok could hardly move his head to see, but he must have heard the sound and felt the rush of warm air filling the chamber.

To avoid stepping through the voidfire circle, Virla became a raven, and flew across to explore. A dim orange light shone at the end of the passage, and she wasn’t surprised to find it sloped downwards to the Deep Roads.

Birds had some kind of Stone sense, it seemed, for as a raven Virla found she could feel where to look for the roots of the vhenadahl. She flew west along the stone-tiled path, lava-lit and familiar in its geometry, her wings stretched out on the heated current of air, then took a narrow passage leading to the south. This opened out into a larger cavern, too small to be part of an old abandoned Thaig – perhaps an abandoned dwarven outpost.

In the distance she could see a ruby egg, like those from the Crossroads or the Vir Dirthara, sitting in a pool of water. Power was swirling from it up towards the ceiling where a great tree’s roots had broken through, a sister to the many trees she’d seen acquire possession of an ancient ruin or temple. As she barrelled towards it she could see how tightly the roots were caught in the mesh of power, stretched thin down deep into the water.

Virla landed, and transformed neatly back into her elven form, relighting the torch in her hand with a graceful gesture that even Solas might have been proud of. The water looked uncanny, almost lyrium-like in its ability to reflect the veilfire, the place smelled of darkspawn, and she wouldn’t have been entirely surprised to turn around and find the Shaper standing there, or some malevolent denizen of the Fade. Yet something else was odd: the roots were braided, tangled in some deliberate pattern as if a glyph had been woven rather than cast.

Fen’Harel’s bride reached for her sending crystal, stepping away from the source of the magic, trying to ignore the fear that prickled at the back of her neck. “Solas?” she called, as it shimmered into life.

It took some time for him to answer, and she had almost given up in frustration when the pendant finally crackled – _yes, vhenan? –_ shouted above the hissing steam and spitting venom of their fight.

“I’ve found the roots,” she explained, trying to sound the words clearly. “There’s a ruby egg, strange silvery water, and the roots are tangled in it in some kind of braiding, possibly Qunari. Any suggestions?”

This time his response was immediate – and incredulous. “A ruby egg? What do you mean? How large?”

“Like the ones I saw last year in the Vir Dirthara, or the Crossroads. You discharge them to make bridges.”

“A _durgen’ghil,_ ” said Solas’ voice, and this time he sounded bemused. “How did they… no, never mind! It will be easier to move the water than the stone. Can you channel it away from the egg and the roots?”

“I’ll try,” said Virla, dubiously, letting the pendant fall back on to her chest. The pool filled a circular marble basin set into the stony ground. Taking a deep breath, she transformed into her azure dragon form, and dug a shallow channel outwards from the pool’s edge with an angry swipe of claws and magic. The water refused to budge.

Puzzled, she inspected the egg with dragon-sight, trying to see the way its power entangled with the water.

  * _Is it easier to move the water than the stone?_



Mythal’s voice echoed around her consciousness, testing her. In dragon form the egg looked small, easy enough to move. Virla reached out her massive front left claw, and clamped it around the ruby stone. Angry magic buzzed around her talons like a memory of the Anchor in her palm, and briefly just as painful, while she beat her wings to pull the _durgen’ghil_ free. _Discharge,_ she thought, and willed, and suddenly everything unwrapped.

The impact sent her high into the chamber, clutching the precious ruby egg in a barrier of azure flame, and she had no time to prepare to ground, landing heavily on her back with her prize rolling away to the side. Virla shifted back to elven form, rubbing her flank as she ran across to inspect the scene. It looked… good? As she watched, the roots – freed from the egg’s magical trap – were unravelling, shrinking back to normal width.

“I moved the egg,” she called into the pendant. “The roots are rising free of the water!”

Again, no immediate response forthcoming. Virla inspected her left hand, now that the azure mark had faded, grimacing as she saw the red welts spanning it. She reached in her pack for a healing potion, then cautiously dipped the empty glass in the pool to collect some of the strange silver water, stoppering it up before stowing it.

Shifting for a further time into her raven form, dizzy from lack of weight, she flew back towards the main artery of the Deep Roads where she’d entered. She was desperate to find out what had happened above ground.

Yet this time, she wasn’t alone. There, eastwards along the path… were darkspawn, and in the middle… _Cole?_

  



	9. Controlling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Merry Christmas everyone! Not the most festive of chapters, but hopefully something new to read is a good present nonetheless.

It was indeed Cole, his gait and build familiar to her even at this distance. He was running, knives in hands, along the passageway, followed by two genlock warriors. Virla flapped her bulky raven wings to fly faster towards them, passing the way she’d come down here; resolving to let Solas teach her how to be a falcon. Cole had tried to lose his pursuers by fading into the shadows, but he’d timed it badly – or more likely he didn’t even see the darkspawn emissary now casting at him from behind – and was caught by a fireball, knocking him to the ground.

There was no time to lose. Virla flew into range then shifted back to elven form, her left hand sweeping out a barrier over her friend then reaching for a healing mist tonic she could toss on to the ground around him.

At the same time her right hand was locating her staff, drawing it out from its grip behind her back to spin it above her head. The spell chained a storm of lightning over Cole and on to the genlocks chasing him. The nearest turned to charge straight at her, roaring, and she sidestepped neatly, scything her spirit sword across its back.

Cole’s head jerked round, relief and exhaustion equally evident on his face. Despite the latter, he scrambled to his feet, running back _towards_ the emissary. He didn’t need her to tell him that he had to help her bring it down fast. Virla took advantage of his being out of range to cast immolate on the ground beneath the two darkspawn warriors, and followed up quickly with a fire mine. The few seconds of disorientation it would create would be enough to put some focus on that damned emissary before it could cast another fireball.

Virla cloaked herself in the Fade, rushing through the darkspawn warriors while the Veil protected her, and reappeared again beside the emissary, driving her sword into it as it lay winded from the decloaking blast. The elven ears, bald head and twisted spine, and rows of snarling, sharpened teeth were all so horribly familiar from her nightmares that she was almost glad when it transported itself further away, its body floating eerily again.

The emissary’s mana – or whatever tainted well it drank from – was regenerating. Another fireball – death cloud, golden sun-magic – would be coming soon. Ought she to shift into her dragon form and freeze them all with her breath? She’d hardly practised that alone, far less with any allies. Instead, she felt out into the Veil, reaching for the twist of fortune that would shape her new scar’s magic to an aegis to protect them both. That this blue mark was Falon’Din’s gift she had no doubt. Sundered from this world, he’d brought them life. And it was his name she breathed as a shimmering azure shield burst into life, a dome of divine protection.

Her feeling of relief – she’d never summoned this shield before in battle – subsided quickly at the sound of roaring, heavy mailed feet running. More darkspawn approaching from the further side, the way that Cole had come. She glanced down the long passage to take stock of their foes: four more genlock warriors, a genlock alpha, another emissary, two hurlock archers. A challenge even for the experienced group she’d taken to the Deep Roads, with Blackwall and Dorian as well as Cole, and Valta and the soldiers from the Legion of the Dead.

Fire flared from her staff towards the original emissary, and Cole parried blows from the warriors, diving between them to stab them in the back. Black tainted blood poured from wounds like tears of grief at Mythal’s death. Virla thought as she cast, her staff spinning in her right hand with the ease of long habit. She would have sent Cole for help, but he couldn’t pass through voidfire alone, and she dared not experiment further now with the powers of the mark, to see how long he might be made invulnerable. No, there was only one course left.

“Cole,” she called. His head spun round; one genlock warrior now lay motionless at his feet, unhelmeted. Its pointed ears taunted her: _of course_ the taint had been created before the Veil was spun, before the dwarves were sundered from their magic by Fen’Harel. “More darkspawn approaching. I need to change into a dragon.”

“Yes,” he said. He thought for a moment. “Where will I be safe?”

A final barrage of lightning and the first emissary was dead, not a moment too soon. “Behind me,” said Virla. She cast a barrier as the last of the aegis’ power faded, and tossed her friend a few healing potions. “The new emissary can teleport, and I’ll need you to focus on them if they go there.”

Cole ran, and Virla lifted a lyrium potion to her lips. _Whose blood was this_ , she wondered, as she drained it.

Pushing that disturbing thought aside, and feeling the mana surge again within her veins, she concentrated on becoming… large. Her dragon form. Horns grew, and azure scales; and long dark claws that reached out for the genlock and threw it twice her length away, skittling the incoming darkspawn warriors like wooden pins. A long slow breath of frost, and all the darkspawn except the emissary were frozen within a ring of ice, a blizzard pouring down on them. Winter blew in from the Fade, and all the emissary’s fire could not defeat its chill.

And she had been right – she was too large to turn around in this passage, her folded wings squeezed against the hot stone walls. Minutes passed, and the darkspawn slowly, one by one, expired, until only the genlock alpha warrior remained. The emissary teleported behind her, its twisted intelligence figuring out her few blind spots; but she heard Cole leap from the shadows and trusted he would call for aid if needed. Eventually the alpha lay dead as well, its bulwark thankfully obscuring its contorted face, and Virla – shivering from the effort – pulled herself together, compressing her mind into the form of a female elf. Two hands, two feet, one staff.

She turned, still dizzy from the transition, to see the second emissary was nearly defeated as well. A blast of fire from her staff weakened it further, but still not enough for Cole to strike the killing blow. As she Fade-stepped close enough to throw another barrier upon them both, it teleported.

Cole looked around, as she did. “Where is it?”

Virla’s eyes scanned the length of this section of the Deep Roads. Not that way, not the other, not here, so…

“Shit! Follow me.” It must have gone up the passage she’d come in from first, from the chamber underneath the forest altar. She began to run, Cole following. They gained the entrance to the passage, narrowly sloping upwards, and Virla remembered the voidfire. “Watch out for the purple fire on the ground! Don’t cross it.”

Fear sang in her veins; a hot shame filled her mind; she kept on running, stumbling upwards through stone. Those paralysed prisoners in the chamber, though followers of the Qun, should not be killed – dismembered, eaten – by the darkspawn! What if others had come up here, while she was occupied elsewhere? What if…

“It’s there!” cried Cole, as they rounded a curve of the rock. Up there was the door to the chamber, its pointed arch framing the emissary, floating with purple voidfire underneath its feet. It snarled at them, and began to cast a fireball. Suddenly furious, Virla brought her mana together, to shoot a barrage of lightning at it…

…but instead a mighty bolt of ice struck from behind. The emissary’s body slumped on to the ground, the force of the bolt driving it off the voidfire. A moment later, Solas stood beside it, his face set and angry. Before Virla or Cole could call to him, flame burned from his hands, and the darkspawn corpse was no more than a pile of ash.

“Solas!” Cole’s voice brought his head up. “I’m sorry. They chased me along the Deep Roads. Virlath saved me!”

“I’m sorry about this emissary,” said Virla. Her fortifying rage had deserted her; she could barely look at Solas. “There were so many… I ought to have thought to put a ward on the entrance to this passage.”

A flutter of wings, and Keeper Lanaya stood beside Solas, smoothing down her robe. “Cole? Where’s Cullen?”

“She will keep him alive,” said Cole. Virla’s head jerked up: what did he mean?

“Perhaps we should not discuss this here,” said Solas, indicating with a discreet wave of his hand the Qunari prisoners still lying on the tiles behind them. He turned. “Vel, you will find oatmeal and salt in the saddlebags, and steel cups and a pan. We will be gone only a few minutes, and will need to eat on our return.”

“What about me?” called Idrilla.

“You can help,” said her Keeper, without specifying how. Virla imagined the hunter rolling her eyes.

They walked back down the passage in silence, and Solas effortlessly cast a barrier on either side of them, two shimmering yellow discs of power. They lit both sides of Cole’s face in gold as he explained how he and Cullen had been taken prisoner by the Qunari, and taken to a woman called Rasaan. He had escaped with difficulty, by encouraging her to forget his existence, and found his way through a forgotten passage into the Deep Roads.

“And so you fled, leaving the Commander still imprisoned,” accused Lanaya, her eyes narrowed.

“Rasaan wanted him alive,” insisted Cole. “She was polite. She wanted to study his strength in resisting lyrium. She was worried about the Viddasala’s experiments on Saarebas, and wanted to know if any could be saved.”

“Who is this Rasaan?” asked Lanaya.

“A Qunari priestess, second only to the Ariqun among the Tamassrans,” explained Solas. “When the Arishok is on campaign away from Par Vollen, a senior Tamassran normally accompanies him. For the obvious reason.”

Cole looked puzzled. “The obvious reason?”

Had the situation not been so serious, sensed Virla, Solas might have chuckled. Instead, he closed his eyes, and spoke with determined calm. “Tamassrans provide for the needs of the Qunari, both spiritual and physical. The Qunari do not marry, yet here the Qun demands that Rasaan serve the Arishok as mistress. Whether she takes him to bed willingly, frequently, or not at all; or is in his confidence, or counsels him to war, I cannot say.”

“Qunari do not marry?” Lanaya was shocked enough to be distracted from the Commander’s plight.

“Their children do not even know their parents,” explained Virla. “They are bred, like men breed horses.”

“Even the elves that have chosen to serve the Qun… like that man up there. They are not allowed to bond?”

A look of profound irritation crossed Solas’ face as he clenched his hands behind his back. “We can discuss this later. It has been a long day. Given what Cole and Vel have said, we can serve our comrades better by leaving them where they are for the next few hours. We must eat, and sleep, and make for the Temple at dawn.”

The Keeper looked unconvinced. “I would prefer to rescue the Commander now,” she said. “What guarantee do we have that this Qunari harlot won’t torture him to find out what he knows about the Inquisitor?”

At that, Solas looked grimmer than ever. “I can assure you that the Qunari already know as much as her advisors ever did about Virlath. The Qunari spies within the Inquisition sent back frequent messages to Par Vollen.”

Virla nodded, sombre at the remembrance of how close the Qunari operation had been to succeeding, to assassinating the rulers of the South. “Our whole operation was compromised by the end. I sometimes wonder if Leliana could have prevented it, had I not encouraged her to be less ruthless in her methods.”

“You did the right thing,” said Cole, earnestly. “She is happier now.”

“I know,” said Virla. That wasn’t the point. She changed the subject. “What happened with the vhenadahl?”

Solas’ expression went masked, presumably – as it was his habit – to hide some strongly felt emotion. “I succeeded in easing it back into sleep. But it is fragile. I hope that I may find it in the Fade when we sleep.”

The sincerity in his voice broke through Lanaya’s anger. “That spirit we saw was the vhenadahl?” she asked, her eyes alight with sudden wonder. “Zathrian spoke of it in terms of legend. He said it slept and dreamed the forest healthy, and no elf should ever seek it out, lest they disturb its slumber. I had almost forgotten that tale.”

“It is good that you had not forgotten,” said Solas quietly. He went on to explain why he thought it prudent to make contact with the spirit, and Lanaya, perhaps remembering her status as a Keeper, did not restate her objections to his plan. Virla might have done, for she was as concerned about Cullen’s welfare as Lanaya was, but she was prepared to trust in Cole’s intuitions of intent for now, as all of them were exhausted.

After a minimal dinner of oatmeal porridge – made with conjured melt-water and heated on magic flame, and offered at Solas’ insistence to each of the prisoners in turn (who all declined) – Virla found herself ushered into a side room by her husband, who handed her the bedrolls he was carrying, and a stock of herbs to freshen them.

“I should prefer to have the door warded while we sleep,” he said, in explanation, closing the door and speaking softly. “Besides, there was not room for six people to sleep in the main chamber. I have suggested the Keeper and her clan sister take the other habitable antechamber. Cole and Vel will stay with the remaining prisoner.”

“Remaining prisoner?”

“I was reflecting during our meal, on the best course of action.”

Virla paused in laying out the bedrolls, glancing over her shoulder at him. “I thought you seemed subdued.”

“An odd choice of word,” he retorted, returning her anxious look with a smirk. “Indeed, I believe we hold more options at our disposal than we did before… that is, assuming no further intrusions to the scene.”

She shook her head, hardly understanding him. “I am sorry about the emissary.”

He laid an awkward hand on her shoulder; she closed her eyes. “I know. You will not make that mistake again.”

“No,” she said, believing it. She stifled a yawn. “I thought you wanted to get rid of Mori, the Arvaarad?”

Solas nodded. “I do,” he concurred. “And I will also let the horned karashok go. The one will feel obliged to track the other, and they will be more concerned with punishment and escape than our plans.”

“But why keep the other Qunari?”

“As a counter with which to bargain, _vhenan_ ,” he said, something unreadable lurking in his eyes. “It is best if you do not inquire too closely into the nature of this counter. I shall return once this is settled. Sleep if you will.”

That was all the warning he would give her – or maybe it was more hint than warning, high-handed though his behaviour was. In any case, she was too tired to figure it out right now; and too tired to do anything more but lay her staff aside and remove her outer robes. She lay down with a spray of lavender by her head to drive away the scent of mould that permeated the chamber; tried to relax her aching muscles; and let her mind wander.

Solas had spoken very little during their supper, and Cole even less; and the conversation had revolved around the missing Dalish clan, and what it meant to be an elf. Idrilla had spoken most forcefully, almost as if she had sensed Lanaya’s inner conflict about her feelings for the human Commander and had been determined to twist the knife where it would do most damage. Vel compared the wandering forest life to his own as a slave on a Tevinter farm, and both had found themselves in vocal agreement about the need for elves to stick together: to marry their own kind, raise children where they could be safe. That very word _safe_ made Virla wince, and Lanaya look more guilty about her clan than ever; she’d turned the conversation quickly on to plants and herbs...

Now she was dreaming, conscious of Fade fall, seeing the first tree, quiet and still. She must have been tired, to fall so quickly, to find this forest deep in the Fade. Virla – following her instinct – spoke calmly to the vhenadahl, reassuring it and easing its fears. When Solas found them both he looked more relieved than she had expected, and she wondered if he had assumed the corruption had taken a deeper hold than had actually been the case.

“Do you know what it was that trapped you?” he was asking, but the tree spirit shook its translucent head and branching arms. “That lightning was no natural electricity, nor were your roots drinking water from the earth.”

Virla explained to them both how she had found the elven egg and dragged it from its bindings.

“When we are in the waking world,” said Solas, with a frown. “I should inspect your hand. It ought not to be possible to disturb such a working by brute force, even with the strength of a dragon.”

The vhenadahl let out a breathy chuckle. “You mislike your young wife outmatching you, old wolf?”

Solas flushed slightly. “Maybe,” he admitted, reaching for Virla’s hand. They were sitting together in a memory of Brecilia, a dawn so beautiful that Virla knew it must have been a composite of many ages’ mornings. “I…”

Whatever he said was lost, for Virla was suddenly – painfully – awake, her head pounding with the ache of too little sleep. Solas had put no silencing barrier on the door, for she could hear a furious argument outside.

“You can’t go for this shem alone!” It was the hunter’s voice, almost screaming with rage. Then: “No!”

Virla scrambled to her feet, flinging the door open with a crash that did nothing for her headache. Idrilla was standing at the foot of the steps, staring upwards with her hands stretched out in supplication. Vel and Cole were staring from the floor where they’d slept, as puzzled and bleary-eyed as she felt. She turned back to Solas, still lying there, fast asleep; gods, he could sleep through the dead. She shook him awake: “Lanaya’s gone.”

  



End file.
